‘Fantastic’ exhibition at Andros museum
This is the second time that the Andros Museum of Modern Art will host an exhibition without Elise Goulandri, whose beauty and charm used to light up this major annual event in the visual arts and gather around her the VIPs of art and shipping, of which her husband Basil Goulandris was an important part. Voyages on the white yacht Paloma, which brought her guests to the island, were legendary. With them was the young Fleurette Karadonti, Elise’s beloved niece who has inherited responsibility for the museum, along with the museum’s director, the art historian Kyriakos Koutsomallis, and Elisabet Plessa, the museum’s curator. Both Koutsomallis and Plessa will host a pre-launch of the exhibition, «Joan Miro: In the Realm of the Fantastic,» for the press and art critics on June 21, along with Jean-Louis Prat, director of the Maeght Foundation and curator of the exhibition. The official opening in the presence of National Economy Minister Nikos Christodoulakis will take place the following day, Saturday June 22. The same morning, at the island’s municipal theater, there will be a round-table discussion on «Myths in 20th Century Art,» coordinated by the president of the University of Europe, Eleni Glykadzi-Ahrweiler. On Sunday, June 23, in what will most certainly be a very moving ceremony for those of us who were privileged to know Basil and Elise Goulandris, a statue of Elise will be unveiled in the forecourt of the Archaeological Museum in the island’s capital. The statue was sculpted by the young and distinguished Praxitelis Tzanoulinos, a student of the leading sculptor Yiannis Pappas, at the initiative and expense of the Municipality of Andros, as a tribute to Elise who used to keep the doors of the museum and her home open to the island’s residents. Already in place there is a bust of Basil P. Goulandris, by the recently deceased Giorgos Nikoalidis, a gift from the Andros Graduates’ Association. It was Elise who unveiled the statue in 1999. Among the day’s big losers was OTE, which lost 2.09 percent to 17.78 euros.
