MONTH IN REVIEW: September 2024
A roundup of this past month’s art and design news about the makers and creators from
Greece and Cyprus
The host of the Counterpoint show on Cosmos FM interviewed our founder
Katerina Housos, host of the Counterpoint show on Cosmos FM in New York City, spoke with our founder about our platform and the Meet & Greet event that we held in Cyprus. They discussed the many ways that Kalo Mina exposes Greek and Cypriot artists to the Hellenic Diaspora and how events such as the one we just had in Cyprus helps achieve this goal.
Listen to the episode here!
Art Athina opened to the public for its 31st year
Art Athina – one of the oldest annual art fairs in Europe – opened to the public at the Zappeion Mansion. Organized by the Hellenic Art Galleries Association, it aims to maintain a dialogue between the Greek and international galleries. There were more than 70 participants this year including The Edit Gallery (Cyprus), The Blender Gallery (Greece), Heitsch (Germany), Lola Nikolaou Gallery, and Shazar Gallery (Italy), to name a few.
Contemporary art was the primary focus of this event and there was a stronger design presence and equity and sustainability in art. The programming this year expanded into other areas of the historic building such as the Aigli open-air cinema nearby. Engaging talks explored the evolution and role of art galleries, video segments presented cutting-edge visual material and storytelling capabilities, and performances exposed the audience to groundbreaking works.
Netflix announced the release date for Maria, a biopic about opera singer Maria Callas
Directed by Pablo Larraín, Maria “follows the American-Greek soprano as she retreats to Paris after a glamorous and tumultuous life in the public eye. It reimagines the legendary soprano in her final days as the diva reckons with her identity and life” and features a storyline about her romance with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onasis.
Angelina Jolie plays the opera diva and she received a standing ovation when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival last month. Jolie said she was “terribly nervous” when first asked to sing and kept apologizing to the crew for her performance. Still, spending so much time steeped in opera encouraged her to fall in love with the emotionally dynamic art form, she said: “When you’ve felt a certain level of despair or pain of love, at a certain point, there’s only some sounds that can encapsulate that feeling.”
Netflix will first release the film in theaters on November 27 in order to qualify for an awards season run before making its streaming debut on Netflix on December 11.
Henry Moore and Greece opened at Gagosian in Athens
Gagosian opened its new exhibition in collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation this month. Henry Moore and Greece illuminates the artist’s fascination with ancient Greek art, which he developed during a trip to Greece in 1951—a few months before his first retrospective at the Tate, London. It explores links between Moore’s practice and earlier, antique Greek art, such as Cycladic sculpture. The artist made his one and only visit to mainland Greece in 1951 for an exhibition at the Zappeion Hall in Athens, where he also traveled to the archaeological sites of Delphi, Olympia, and Mycenae. He did not exhibit again in Athens until 1965. His sculptures, lithographs, prints, and drawings demonstrate his interest in Greek mythological themes.
The show runs until October 26, 2024.
The Acropolis is wonderful—more marvelous than ever I imagined. . . . it’s the greatest thrill I’ve ever had. —Henry Moore, 1951
The Cycladic Museum of Art announced its upcoming exhibition: Kykladitisses: Untold Stories of Women in the Cyclades
Kykladitisses: Untold Stories of Women in the Cyclades narrates the islands’ history through the perspectives of its females. It focuses on the evolving roles of women through prehistory and the post-Byzantine period— from deities to mothers and beyond. The exhibition also explores the boundaries of female roles within the community and offers glimpses into the ongoing process of female emancipation.
The exhibition is curated by Dr. Dimitris Athanasoulis, Director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades, and the Scientific Directors of the Museum of Cycladic Art, Dr. Panagiotis Iossif, Professor at Radboud University in the Netherlands, and Dr. Ioannis Fappas, Assistant Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
It will be on display from December 12, 2024 until May 4, 2025. The exhibition will then travel to the Archaeological Museum of Thera in June 2024.
