ART-ATHINA Contemporary Art Fair Opens in Athens

Written by Yianna Papadopoulos Friday, 06 May 2011 23:03

Athens.- Between May 12th and 15th ART-ATHINA continues its exemplary mission of promoting art, and in particular contemporary artistic creation, making a keenly anticipated return with its 17th edition. ART-ATHINA 2011 will take place at the Faliro Pavilion (TaeKwonDo), widely regarded as the perfect venue for the event. This year, a similar number of galleries and cultural institutions will be participating (58 and 40 respectively), offering visitors the opportunity to enjoy a panorama of contemporary Greek and international art through the work of more than 300 artists, and also through the exhibits of museums, cultural institutions and art publications. The works of art on sale at the exhibition will attract any potential buyer, since their prices will start from 300 Euros and they will even include works that could form part of museum or large private collections.

Since it was established in 1993, ART-ATHINA has become an internationally acclaimed art fair. ART-ATHINA is Greece’s biggest annual art event, sustained by the conviction that art is a lever for change and progress and that it can dynamically contribute to social dialogue, as well as adding colour to everyday life – a conviction borne out by the fact that last year’s fair attracted approximately 16,000 visitors and revitalized the country’s art scene. The exhibition has been attracting increasing numbers of new visitors over the past two years. Among the Greek and foreign galleries, a lot have participated many times before in the fair while others will be appearing for the first time, a fact that underlines the international profile of ART-ATHINA.


Among the 50 galleries participating in the 2011 fair, the majority are from Greece and Cyprus, but overseas visitors include galleries from France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Japan. The 'Parallel Programme' of ART-ATHINA 2011 includes, among other events a screening programme titled “Secret Journeys” presenting six videos from the National Museum of Contemporary Art collection, with themes emerging from travelling, searching and wandering in a physical or mental space. Contact with nature or another culture as well as the experience of travel itself become motives for observations and revelations. Curated by: Stamatis Schizakis. Video art by: Vito Acconci, Sophie Calle and Gregory Shephard, Gary Hill, Martha Rosler, Shelly Silver, Bill Viola. The Onassis Cultural Center in Athens participates in this year’s ART-ATHINA by showcasing a selection of video-art works which were previously shown in public places around Athens during Visual Dialogues. Visual artists use contemporary media to translate into images their views on issues arising from scholarly discussions, such as history, democracy, science, ethics, quality of life etc.

The action group 'In Flo', comprised of students at the Department of Visual and Applied Arts of Florina (University of Western Macedonia) and co-ordinated by three of their professors, artists Dimitra Siaterli, Theodoros Zirpiadis and Harris Kondosphyris, uses printmaking methods in order to make statements reflecting their concerns about contemporary art and the current social situation. Kunsthalle Athena, apart from its exhibition stand, will also present a series of participatory games under the title “The Ping Pong Lab – Phase A: Ping Pong Diplomacy.” To mark three recent losses for the contemporary Greek art scene – the deaths of Vlassis Caniaris and Nikos Alexiou and the closure of the art space Zita-Mi– ART-ATHINA organises a series of documentary screenings around these important chapters in the history of our contemporary art scene. The following documentaries will be shown: “Vlassis Caniaris 1958”, from the documentary series “The Story of my Years”, produced by ERT, “Nikos Alexiou” from the TV series “The Greeks” also produced by ERT, and the documentary “I would Like to Give you my Heart Forever Zita-Mi” by Atonis Kioukas. Visit the art fair's website at ... http://www.art-athina.gr

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