Major Tsarouchis retrospective in Athens

A major retrospective exhibition showcasing works by one of Greece’s greatest painters is on show at the Piraeus Street annex of the Benaki Museum in Athens until March 13, 2010. This is the first retrospective of Yannis Tsarouchis’ works in Athens, showcasing 680 representative painted works from all the periods of the his oeuvre, as well as a large number of set design models that belong to museums and private collections in Greece and overseas. The exhibition Yannis Tsarouchis 1910-1989 is organized on the occasion of the centenary of the Tsarouchis’ birth.
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Mirό of Majorca in Thessaloniki

The biggest ever exhibition of Joan Mirό works in Greece can be visited in the city of Thessaloniki, at the Teloglion Foundation of Arts until February 5, 2010. The Mirό of Majorca exhibition is a collaboration with the Foundation Pilar i Joan Mirό of Majorca and includes a significant number of Mirό’s more than 400 works and documents of all themes, like painting, sculptures, etchings, drawings, sketches for sculpts or public art, for sobreteixisms, for ballet, for music, as well as material for King Ubu of Jarry, which was of special importance to Mirό.
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Degas bronzes on show in Athens

Seventy-four bronze sculptures by Edgar Degas presented together for the first time in an exhibition that will make visitors travel back in time is an event that should not be missed while in Athens this season. The complete sculptures of Edgar Degas will be running until April 25, 2010 at Athens’ Herakleidon Museum. All works in the show are on loan by the M.T. Abraham Center for the Visual Arts, and they include Degas’ most important one The Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen.
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Le goût à la grecque

The transition from heavily ornate rococo to a classicizing aesthetic inspired by the Greek antiquity during the reign of Louis XV is at the heart of the National Gallery’s latest exhibition, titled Le goût à la grecque – The birth of Neoclassicism in France. Masterpieces from the Musée du Louvre. Curated by Marie-Laure de Rochebrune, the state-of-the-art show features mainly exhibits gleaned from the Louvre in Paris, like paintings, sculptures, tapestries and etchings as well as furniture, tobacco cases, vases and watches. You can visit it until January 11, 2010.
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The art of diplomacy on canvas

We met in Bratislava a few weeks before the opening of his solo exhibition at the Slovak Presidential Palace in November 2009 and we “clicked” at first sight. At the time I hade no clue he was an artist, as he was introduced to me in his diplomatic hat. It just happens that Nikos Kanellos is a diplomat, currently serving in the Slovak capital as Greece’s ambassador to this landlocked central European country. Well, forget all stereotypes that come along with the title. Kanellos is not just another diplomat-turned-to-artist example, but the exact opposite: an artist who just happens to be a diplomat. How wonderful our world would be if all of them were like this guy, I thought.
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Athens’ best kept musical secret

There are few cultural venues in Athens whose history runs as deep into time as that of the Parnassos Literary Society. Counting 145 years of continuous presence in the cultural calendar of the Greek capital, the Society founded by the four sons of numismatist Pavlos Lambros -Michael, Spyridon, Konstantinos and Dionysios- is today one of the most active actors in many areas of arts and culture, namely classical music. The first three months of Parnassos’ 2009/2010 season of concerts running until the end of this year is a living proof.
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Colourful times with puppets and mimes

With more than a hundred performances, seminars, workshops, street happenings, exhibitions and screenings, Greece’s most exciting festival for the young celebrates its 11th edition in the northern Greek city of Kilkis, just south of Thessaloniki. The International Puppet and Mime Festival, which runs from September 29 until October 13, brings together artists, puppeteers and theatre companies from Asia, Europe, Australia and North America in a colourful gathering which is one of its kind.
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Thessaloniki’s Film Fest Turns 50!

Soul searching is a necessary process when you reach a certain age of maturity. Greece’s most important cinematic event in the cultural calendar of the year, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, reached this point and is asking itself and followers as it turns fifty: Why cinema now? It’s more of a rhetorical question of course to prepare us all for the idea that the festival in the northern Greek is not just about watching movies. It is rather an occasion for thought, dialogue, communication, interaction in a jubilee reaching its peak from 13 to 22 of November.
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Faces of Modernism

Fifty five distinguished artists from Romania, Bulgaria and Greece and 120 of their most representative paintings form the complete panorama of Modernist art in the three countries. This survey will be on display at the National Art Museum of Romania (MNAR) for two months, from October 1 to November 29, 2009. After Bucharest, the exhibition Faces of Modernism: Bulgaria, Romania, Greece. Painting 1910-1940 will travel to Sofia and then Athens.
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What’s the age of happiness?

Three years ago, Mark Titchner was nominated for the Turner Prize, Britain’s most influential contemporary art award. The work that won him the 2006 nomination was titled How to Change Behavior (Tiny Masters of the World Come Out), a sculptural installation which is a provocative hybrid that often combines new technologies with old techniques. This work along with 21 more by the British artist -light boxes, sculptures and video-installations- you can see until October 21 at the Hellenic American Union’s galleries in the central Kolonaki district of Athens.
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Cy Twombly in Gagosian’s Athenian virgin show

This fall, Gagosian Gallery, one of the world's foremost modern and contemporary art institutions, adds one more selling outpost in Athens, Greece. The new gallery marks further expansion of Larry Gagosian’s empire, who began with his first space in New York in 1979. With the Athenian addition, there are now ten locations worldwide, which span New York, Beverly Hills, London, Rome, and Hong Kong, and make Gagosian one of the few that can lay claim to a truly global reach. The new Gagosian in Athens kicks off on September 25, with an exhibition of new paintings by Cy Twombly entitled Leaving Paphos Ringed With Waves, due to run through December 19, 2009.
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Dancing with the Dutch

The Nederlands Dans Theater has been a cultural ambassador of the Dutch since 1959, when it was founded. Giving sold-out performances all around the world, this is one of the leading dance companies worldwide. If you go to the Netherlands any time after November 2009 and until the end of May 2010, do not miss the opportunity to go to one of he NDT shows given in 24 cities around the country. But even if you cannot make it to the Dutch country, you might be lucky: the NDT may come to you! This season's European tour for the NDT runs until July 2010 and stops to France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Spain, Luxembourg and Norway.
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Major Escher show comes to a close in Athens

A landmark exhibition on one of 20th century’s greatest artists, Maurits Cornelis Escher, comes to a close in Athens, Greece, with its fourth and final phase being on display at the Herakleidon Museum until November 15, 2009. This part of the exhibition From Drawing to Masterpiece highlights the way M.C. Escher used color in his work and is an absolute must-see especially if you have already seen the previous three phases.
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Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism

After its great success at the Tate Modern in London, with more than 100 thousand visitors from February to May 2009, the exhibition Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism was transferred to Greece last June to be presented by the Greek State Museum of Contemporary Art (SMCA) at the Moni Lazariston exhibition hall. If you couldn’t see it while in London, you still have time until September 20, to witness what the British press hailed as the show of the work of two avant-garde Russians who paved the way for Warhol.
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Paul Delvaux under the Greek sun

One of Greece’s most exciting museums -not only for its content but also for its amazing location- is definitely the Goulandris Contemporary Art Museum in the beautiful island of Andros. Just an hour’s sail by ferry from the port of Rafina, close to the Athens airport, every summer the island attracts art lovers with the top temporary shows presented at the museum. This year, have a short or long holiday break in Andros and until the end of September find the time to visit a unique exhibition of works by famous Belgian surrealist painter Paul Delvaux.
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Remapping Athens?

The project has been criticized as one more effort to “clean up” central rundown areas of Athens from annoying and disturbing images of wandering immigrants and local poor, in order to upgrade them and turn them into a hip place. This “remapping” of the city, critics say, must be condemned. The truth is that ReMap 2 deserves our attention, since it presents some really interesting exhibitions and art happenings right in the heart of the Greek capital. A walk around the areas of Kerameikos and Metaxourgeio (KM) anytime before October 4, would be highly recommendable.
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Greece's healthiest film fest kicks off

The girl’s a rolling stone… She just doesn’t stop. Renowned Greek film director Lucia Rikaki and her team of dedicated collaborators, are once again showing innovation and present Greece’s –and probably the world’s- first ever film festival dedicated entirely to health issues! And what place is more fit to play host to that festival than the Greek island of Kos, birthplace of Hippocrates, the father of medicine. The first Ippokratis (Hippocrates) International Film Festival on Health starts its virgin edition September 1 and runs for five days.
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Greece’s two ‘invisible’ biennials

The northern Greek city of Thessaloniki had always felt in rivalry with the nation’s capital Athens. Being the country’s second largest city with a population of one million, Thessaloniki has a long tradition as a center of the arts and culture in northern Greece. This year, the two “rival” cities are both presenting the second editions of their international art biennials. There’s only one tiny problem. Very few in Greece have any knowledge that they are happening!
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Greece's dream comes true

Never again in this century has a single building meant so much for the Greek nation as the New Acropolis Museum has. Three decades and countless legal controversies and adventures after the original idea was born, Greece proudly welcomes a state-of-the-art museum, worthy of the cultural treasures it is going to host. The New Acropolis Museum is delivered to the Greek people and the world on June 20, 2009, with a lavish opening ceremony that is going to be remembered for years to come.
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