Old cemetery comes to life
When was the last time you visited the archaeological site at Kerameikos? The cemetery, one of the capital’s most atmospheric and thought-provoking ancient sites, was recently enriched by the artistic work of Nefeli Kontarini. At the Kerameikos Museum, which hosts almost exclusively burial finds, Kontarini has put forward a new reading of the place and its exhibits. She has set up a journey where major funerary monuments, such as those of Demeter and Pamphile, seem to come to life through a dialogue about life and death. In the atrium, the sculpture of a bull – a funerary monument for Dionysius of Kollytos and also a symbol of life and death – attracts around it all the priestesses who mourn death and bring the offerings of life to lay at its feet. Kontarini’s life-size figures, dressed in white veils, give the impression that they are also taking part in an ancient ritual. Their presence – delicate, ethereal, motionless and feminine – makes a subtle contrast with the power and dynamism of the bull to which they pay homage. After last year’s exhibition at the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art, Kontarini has followed the Eridanus River and Athens’s ancient fortifications to the site of Kerameikos to conduct another dialogue with the spirit of the museum and its greater surroundings. The exhibition will run to November 30, with guided tours scheduled to take place Wednesdays at 4.30 p.m. and Saturdays at 3 p.m.
