The oeuvre of Penny Siopis (Until January 12)
For lovers of the visual arts, an in-depth acquaintance with the work of Penny Siopis, a South African artist of Greek descent, is a must. Aged 71, the artist, whose subjects include colonialism and exploitation, trauma, fear, anxiety and denunciation is presenting her work for the first time in Europe in a museum context and on this scale in the form of a retrospective. At the National Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Katerina Gregos.
The Enotrians on the Acropolis (Until January 26 January)
The Enotrians , an ancient Italic people who lived in southern Italy between the 9th and 5th centuries BC, have disembarked at the Acropolis Museum. Visitors can now see what the Greeks beheld on their first great journeys Westwards, as they set out to establish colonies and create Magna Grecia in what is now Italy. The exhibition entitled “The ancient cultures of Basilicata. Treasures emerging to light” includes over 300 weapons and pieces of jewelry in gold, silver and amber, along with metal and ceramic vessels. The artifacts were selected for display by Massimo Osanna and Annamaria Mauro.
Visual arts at Megaron the Athens Concert Hall (until February 23)
Nina Papakonstantinou uses wax, ink and light among other things to create a condition of conversation between two writers: Greece’s Alexandros Papadiamantis and Japan’s Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. The presentation of the specially designed installations for the Service Courtyard of the Athens Concert Hall is curated by Anna Kafetsi.
The Megaron foyer, too, is hosting an impressive art-work: the lightning bolt of the oversize wall installation Ellampsis, which Venia Dimitrakopoulou wrought from steel, handmade paper and LED lights. Curated by Eleni Varopoulou. Until the end of January.
Art in Gold: Jewelry in Hellenistic Times (Until April 27)
The temporary exhibitions space in the Benaki Museum’s main building in Kolonaki, Athens, is currently hosting a hoard of treasure which, representing the work of the most skilled artisans of antiquity, would have been the envy of the greatest kings in history. Glamour and craftsmanship, the present and the distant past, come together in the 430 precious artifacts on display in the “Art in Gold: Jewelry in Hellenistic times” exhibition, which have made their way to Athens from 35 museums around Greece and abroad.
Highlights of the exhibition, curated by Irini Papageorgiou, are the rare reunion of the “Treasure of Karpenisi”, whose 44 pieces of gold jewelry are usually divided between the National Archaeological Museum and the Benaki Museum, as well as the emphasis placed on the craftsmen who made the pieces through experimental archaeology and the research conducted by the modern-day jeweler, Akis Goumas.
Stories from the Cyclades (Until May 4)
The women of the Cyclades assemble at the Museum of Cycladic Art to tell their many and varied tales from Neolithic times to the 19th century. The exhibition’s prehistoric figurines and manuscripts, Byzantine icons, marble statues and frescoes shed light on women as goddesses and patronesses, creators and entrepreneurs, lovers and victims of violence. Among the 179 exhibits in the show (which was curated by Dimitris Athanasoulis, Panagiotis Iossif and Ioannis Fappas), several are making their first public appearance, with the impressive Kore of Thera seizing the opportunity to steal the show before going on permanent display in the renovated archaeological museum on her home island in the spring.
