Archeological museum, Athens

Athens

With its attractive climate, low rents, large wild spaces but also, it must be said, its very alluring tax system, Athens could become a major platform for contemporary art in Europe. It is like a new Berlin complete with sunshine, where ambitious young galleries like Intermission or Hot Wheels are multiplying. In 2019 a contemporary art museum even opened there, EMST, which should acquire a certain magnitude with the arrival in July 2022 of a new artistic director in the form of well-known curator Katerina Gregos.

Lucas Samaras at EMST

Private institutional initiatives

Cycladic Art

But the Greek capital is above all defined by its private institutional initiatives. Sandra Marinopoulos’s Museum of Cycladic Art is hosting a unique and delicate dialogue this year between the very high-profile abstract painter Brice Marden (born in 1938) (he has been visiting Greece for a long time) and the arts of antiquity (1).

Brice Marden

Exceptional work by Jeff Koons

An hour and a half from Athens by boat, on the island of Hydra, the billionaire Dakis Joannou has invited Jeff Koons to transform an old slaughter house into a luxurious palace filled with frescoes and readymades. The result is both unexpected, for Koons, and exceptional (See here , here and here, the last interviews of Jeff Koons).

Jeff Koons

Dimitris Daskalopoulos

But the main event for 2022 revolves around the exhibition in Athens at a former tobacco factory of a selection of monumental pieces from the collection belonging to Dimitris Daskalopoulos. The businessman has been collecting since the late 1990s. “He never made a secret of the fact that he didn’t want to build a museum in his name and that he would refuse a major sale that would disperse his collection,” explains his advisor Dimitris Paleocrassas.

Former tobacco Factory

EMST, Tate, Guggenheim, MCA

Last May, Daskalopoulos therefore announced that he was giving 350 of his artworks to four museums in three countries (the EMST in Athens, the Tate in London, the Guggenheim in New York and the MCA in Chicago). “Art should be public,” says the philanthropist collector. “I wanted to expand the audience for the collection.” Ahead of this enormous international gift, it is Athens that is profiting exclusively one last time from the collection, until 27 November, in the spectacular space renovated by the collector which also contains the archives from the Greek parliament.

Annette Messager

Annette Messager

Here we find pieces in various styles, from a gigantic jungle of images and suspended objects by the French artist Annette Messager (born in 1943) (See here an interview of Annette Messager) to a spectacular machine for giving life, conceived in 1994 by Damien Hirst (Born in 1965) at a time when he was still very inventive. Another British artist, Michael Landy (born in 1963) created a mechanism made in a makeshift manner in the style of Tinguely which only functions when it is offered credit cards… to destroy.

 Thomas Hirschorn

Thomas Hirschorn

Thomas Hirschorn (born in 1957) created an XXL labyrinthine tunnel as a shelter to protect against all the struggles that 21^st-century humans must face. The work, dating from 2002, seems premonitory. But we see Hirschorn’s work less these days, compared to a time when he was once ubiquitous on the international scene. While the exhibition is spectacular we regret the fact that what makes the greatness of the Daskalopoulos collection was not highlighted more. There is a missing impressive “Cell” by Louise Bourgeois (1911-2020), a major artist from the collection, depicting the state of psychic imprisonment we can feel in depressive periods. The work was on loan incidentally for a retrospective of the artist. (See also her “Maman”, the giant spider which belongs to Daskalopoulos, currently exhibited in front of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center).

 David Hammons

David Hammons

Daskalopoulos noticed relatively early on the importance of David Hammons, the African-American artist who subversively addresses the painful black heritage of our present society. He has extensively collected the artist, who has become one of the stars of the international scene (See here the report about his recent work in front of the Whitney Museum in New York). However, only two of his pieces are on display at the former tobacco factory.

Struggles of mankind

Damien Hirst

“The collection addresses the struggles of mankind,” concludes Dimitris Daskalopoulos, who confesses that he feels a certain emptiness since the announcement of the mega-donation. We look forward to the next projects.

Until 27 November. Neon- Former Public Tobacco Factory. www.neon.org.gr/en/

(1) I met the curator of the exhibition at the Cycladic Art Museum Dimitrios Antonitsis. He spoked about the show: