CULTURE

A panorama of visual arts

The new year brings us a number of interesting exhibitions, ranging from a restrospective-style show on the living legend of photography Josef Koudelka at the Benaki Museum, to a much-anticipated reopening of the ancient Greek art collection of the Goulandris Museum. A quick glance at the exhibition program tells us that little has been omitted: We have architecture, photography, design, painting and archaeology. Beyond the large-scale events, there are also numerous noteworthy small exhibitions scheduled to take place, such as a retrospective of the work of Greek artist Panos Feidakis with work from the Frissiras collection, or another show, at the Benaki, on Yiannis Migadis. For early 2008, the National Gallery is putting together a tribute to Nikolaos Lytras (1883-1927), son of the legendary Nikephoros Lytras and one of the leading representatives of Greek Impressionism. Influenced by the Blue Rider art movement, in his brief life he was the first Greek painter to extol the Greek countryside. Running in parallel with this show will be a display of 73 works by acclaimed Impressionist painters, including Monet, Renoir and Derain, on loan from the Oscar Ghez Collection. The Frissiras’s tribute to Feidakis will run from January 16 to March 9 at the museum’s building at 3 Monis Asteriou Street in Plaka. Feidakis, one of Greece’s most important artists from the 1980s Generation, and who died at a young age, has been acclaimed for the sensitivity of his work and the intensity of his idiom. The Benaki Museum has announced a rich program of events for 2008, among which is an exhibition of posters from the 1960s and 70s from the pioneering K&K Advertising Center of Athens (opens January 28), photographs from the wonderful Fatsea collection from the island of Kythera (February 2), retrospectives of works by Nata Mela (March), Jean-Francois Bonhomme (April), Gerasimos Steris (May) and Koudelka (September). The museum will also host an extensive tribute to the late stage director Karolos Koun in the fall on the occasion of centennial celebrations of his birth. October will also see the exhibition on Yiannis Migadis. Permanent displays The Museum of Cycladic Art will shortly be inaugurating two new permanent exhibitions. The first is titled «Scenes from Daily Life in Ancient Athens» and comprises 150 ancient objects from the museum’s collection. In February the museum will reopen its permanent ancient Greek art collection, presenting, for the first time, 350 displays from the collections of N.P. Goulandris, K. Politis and the Athens Academy. It is also organizing a tribute to Greek artist Yiannis Psychopedis.

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