The Frissyras Museum celebrates its one-year anniversary
The Tsoclis exhibit celebrates the one-year anniversary of the Frissyras Museum of Contemporary European Painting, a privately operated museum structured around the art collection of its owner, Vlassis Frissyras, a lawyer and a passionate, longtime art collector, especially of paintings depicting the human figure by both international and Greek artists. In keeping with the collection’s underlying concept, it is mostly such anthropocentric works that the Frissyras Museum showcases. The Frissyras Museum can be truly held up as a successful example of a private enterprise promoting artistic exchanges and Greek art internationally. In the one year that it has been open, it has shown only a portion of its permanent art collection (overall the museum’s capacity is 250 works whereas the collection numbers over some 3,000 works) but has also expanded to include one-man exhibits. These include a display of works by the Dutch artist Pat Andrea and the French Vincent Corpet (the artist that represented his country in the most recent Sao Paolo Biennale) and the current show on Tsoclis. During this past year, the Frissyras Museum has also participated in international exhibits, including one on European painting currently on view at Milan and organized by the city’s Forni Gallery. The theme of the exhibit investigates the depiction of the human figure in European painting and the Frissyras Museum participates quite fittingly with the works of six Greek artists (Sakayan, Misouras, Veroukas, Roris, Daskalakis and Papanikolaou). Considering how much the exhibit fits in with the museum’s principles, Frissyras plans to host it in the upcoming summer. Plans for next year include a retrospective on the late figurative painter Lefteris Kanakakis, a show on the Italian Andrea Martinelli, followed by a retrospective on the British artist Steven Chambers, organized in collaboration with the East Flower London gallery. The year 2002 will close with a retrospective on the work of Chronis Botsoglou (currently rector of the Athens School of Fine Arts), which will run parallel to a show on the artist at the Benaki Museum. Among the museum’s plans is to make the works of Greek artists known abroad. To this effect, the Frissyras Museum will show part of its holdings to the Belgium Museum of Modern Art in Ghent and will also work on a project with a museum in Bremen, Germany. Plans get even more ambitious for 2003. The year will begin with a retrospective on the Greek artist Edouardos Sakayan, followed by a large-scale exhibit on the collections of the New York, London and Madrid branches of the Marlboro galleries. The exhibit will include works by some of the most renowned international artists of the 20th century, such as Francis Bacon, Oskar Kokoschka (a separate exhibit on his works is planned for the year after), Botero, Paula Rego, Kitaj and Lucian Freud. A retrospective on Argentinean artist Antonio Segui will close the year. Future projects extend to the year 2004 when a large exhibit in collaboration with the Belgian Verraneman Museum will usher in the Olympics with works ranging from Pharaonic masks and Etruscan antiquities to works by Picasso and other 20th-century masters.
