MONTH IN REVIEW: December 2023
A roundup of this month’s art and design news about the makers and creators from Greece and Cyprus
The influence of Greek art and culture has been on the rise on the global stage for years and this collection of show openings, closings, and cultural programs helps to prove that this momentum will continue into 2024.
Dimitris Papamitsos / Greek Prime Minister's Office
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (Met) Cycladic Art: The Leonard Stern Collection loan from the Cycladic Museum of Art will open next month
161 Cycladic artifacts from the Leonard N. Stern Collection will be displayed at the met for 25 years starting next month. This display is a result of a landmark 50 year partnership among the Greek Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens (more details here). It is part of a solution to repatriate the works to Greece, while making them available to the Met’s global audience and fostering the study and appreciation of Early Cycladic art and culture.
This collection will be on view for 10 years. It includes artifacts that are primarily from the Early Bronze Age (3200 to 2000 BCE) and Late Neolithic period to the end of the early Bronze Age. Marble figurines, vessels, bowls, and other objects will be displayed.
After 10 years on view, select works will periodically travel to Greece over 15 years for display with other loans of Cycladic art to the Met. Following this 25 year loan period, important works of Cycladic art will continue to be loaned to the Met from Greece for an additional 25 years. The exhibition will start on January 25.
EMST opened Part I of the exhibition cycle, What If Women Ruled The World?
From December 2023 until October 2024, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (EMST) is presented in a three-part cycle of exhibitions exclusively dedicated to the work of women artists or artists who identify as female. This cycle of exhibitions falls under the umbrella title What if Women Ruled the World?
This series of twelve solo exhibitions of Greek and international artists from different generations will take over one floor of the museum’s permanent collection. Katerina Gregos, the museum’s artistic director said that this series aims to reimagine what a museum would look like if, instead of a few token pieces, works by women artists were the majority. She notes: “Especially in a country like Greece, where there was never a prominent organised feminist movement in the visual arts and women artists were systematically marginalized over decades, this is both an important statement and a redressing of a major imbalance. At a time when we are witnessing a resurgence of attacks on women’s rights, the question of female empowerment and gender equality, across the board, is more urgent than ever.”
Part I of this series is entitled WOMEN, together and includes works from works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift to EMST; Chryssa Romanos: The Search for Happiness for as Many as Possible; DANAI ANESIADOU: D POSSESSIONS; and Time in my hands. Leda Papaconstantinou. A Retrospective; as well as a series of performances by Alexis Blake.
Andreas Simopoulos
Embodying Pasolini, the ritual-like fashion show conceived by Olivier Saillard and performed by Tilda Swinton, concluded at Onassis Stegi
This performance was a ritual-like fashion show and a tribute to the Italian nonconformist filmmaker, poet, and activist Pier Paolo Pasolini—who was murdered in 1975 at the age of 53. It was the original performance-live installation conceived by fashion curator Olivier Saillard and British Oscar-winner actress Tilda Swinton, who have collaborated together for years. In the show, high fashion met high art. The androgynous body of Swinton was the canvas of more than thirty costumes and props designed by Danilo Donati during the 1960s and 1970s and crafted by atelier Farani for the films of the Italian director.
Only in this case, Swinton herself, like a silent window-shop mannequin, wore the costumes one by one, for all to see. Captured behind the fabric, she did not interpret the roles of the actors who wore them first. Instead, her role was precisely the absence of any role, revealing another costume, an orphan one, disentangled from the body, the actors, and the films, a costume with the capacity to stir emotions as it flashed in its hieratic detachment.
Cyprus launched the Culture Youth Card
The Culture Youth Card is a prepaid card (with €220) that citizens 18 and over can now apply for to receive access to local cultural events, theater productions, museums, and more. This pilot program is led by the Ministry of Education and Culture in Cyprus as well as the Bank of Cyprus. Deputy Minister of Culture Vasiliki Kassianidou said the card “strengthens cultural institutions, indirectly providing support to their work. This falls within the broader framework of our strategy to further increase cultural creation,” she added. The card is valid for one year after it is activated.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things was released into theaters
Poor Things, director Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe, debuted in theaters this month. This Frankensteinian movie is about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a woman brought back to life by the unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter. “Lanthimos charts the gradual improvement in Bella’s synchronicity (between her mental age and her body), as her understanding blossoms from the childlike into the mature. If that makes the film sound like no fun at all, don’t worry. Only very rarely is it not fun,” says Anthony Lane in his review of the film for The New Yorker. As of December 24, the movie grossed $6 million at the box office.
The Beyond DisDance Festival is returning to Limassol
This festival is a production of the Ipogia Skini NGO and is dedicated to the inclusion of people with disabilities both on stage and in the role of the spectator. This is the second year of this event and it will be hosted on January 13 and 14 in Limassol. This year’s production explores different tools of creative accessibility. It consists of four completed works – two international (Greece and Switzerland) and two local productions – that were guided by Christos Papamichael, an accessibility consultant. Each performance lists the tools and the degree of accessibility it offers out of the collection of (embedded) audio description, tactile tour, subtitles and interpretation in Cypriot Greek Sign Language. More details are here.
Slim Aarons “Civilized Snooze”
Architectural Digest Italia rounded up some of the best reasons to visit Athens in 2024
It’s no secret that Athens has been experiencing a cultural renaissance for the past few years. It is certainly a rich time to visit the city and indulge in its numerous galleries, restaurants, wine bars, stores, and absorb the energy of its ancient monuments and buildings. This list of activities ranges from visits to the Alekos Fassianos Museum, Rebecca Camhi art gallery, Anthologist, a luxury store by collector Andria Mistakos, hotels such as The Dolli, and Piraeus Tower, the first green skyscraper in Greece.
“Athens is so difficult to pigeonhole, that there is no other way to get to know it other than experiencing it firsthand.” claims Architectural Digest. All of us at Kalo Mina couldn’t agree more.
