WHAT'S ON

Spolia | Athens | September 10 – November 2

Spolia | Athens | September 10 – November 2

The Gennadius Library presents “Spolia: Transcripts of the Stones of the Little Metropolis” at the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), in which architect and artist Nora Okka exhibits 22 paper squeezes of relief sculpture from the Little Metropolis, a Byzantine-era church located in Mitropolis Square, next to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, and 11 squeezes of inscriptions on its reused blocks (spolia) alongside lithographs and drawings of books from the library’s collections and photographs and sketches from the archives of the Benaki Museum. Okka’s “squeezes” comprise layers of paper that, after being moistened and carefully worked into a stone's nooks and crannies with a boar's-hair brush, dry into an exact model of the surface. Squeezes are normally used to produce a portable representation of an inscription. The Little Metropolis incorporates many reused old blocks dating from the fourth century BC up to the Middle Byzantine period itself. The exhibition opens on Tuesday, September 10, with a lecture at Cotsen Hall by Professor Manolis Korres of the Academy of Athens at 7 p.m. Another lecture by Professor Dale Kinney of Bryn Mawr College will address the issue of spolia more broadly on Tuesday, October 29, also starting at 7 p.m. Opening hours for the exhibition are Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 4 to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free of charge.

ASCSA, 54 Souidias, Kolonaki, tel 213.000.2400

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