Double surprised

In my old neighborhood in Athens, there was a huge building, former beer factory, than was unused for decades. In 2002 it was announced that a part will be demolished and another part will become an art museum. When I moved to Crete in 2014 it was still under construction and so it was for the next two years after that. But during my winter holidays in January 2017 I was very glad and surprised to see that the museum was ready and open. And I was even more surprised when I was asked to take pictures of the building and the current exhibition!

The building itself gave me a lot of shooting opportunities while the view of Acropolis and Lycabettus hill from the roof, is just gorgeous!

The name of that first exhibition was Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens and it was part of a collaboration project between the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens and the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp. It launched in October 31 2016 and stayed in Athens till February 5 2017 before going to Antwerp.

As my first contribution to the also brand new Art Talk community I am sharing some of my favorite pictures from that day and a few words from the organizers of the exhibition who are a bit more fluent than me in art talking :)

This encounter between museums with an international collection is conceived as an exchange that aims to go beyond the mere events-based approach, typical for our time. The impetus for this project is the need for a cultural dialog within a diverse Europe.source

Athens and Antwerp appear to be two extremes in Europe today. Yet both cities have, each in their own way, contributed essential building blocks to the cultural network of Europe. Athens not only gave birth to the general principles of our current societal organization, but also to its cultural structure. Even the concept of ‘dialog’ was born in Athens. Antwerp, on the other hand, is one of the pivotal cities of the early modern period. It is the city where Thomas More conceived his Utopia, the city where the first art market was born and the city where early science and humanistic printing went hand in hand with a flourishing trade.source

Urgent Conversations: Antwerp–Athens (28.04.2017 – 07.01.2018) is structured from the bottom, starting each time with a work by a Greek artist and one by a Belgian artist. These works are then brought together under an overarching theme that is expressed through the works. Finally, this theme is questioned and further developed by a third artist chosen from one of the two collections. In this way, thematic clusters are created that each include works by three artists, set up in dialog with each other as well as with the specific concept they thematize. The meeting of perspectives from seemingly opposite directions – one from Athens and another from Antwerp – creates the possibility of a common space. Such encounters thus result in the opening up and renewing of the existing frames of reference of both museums. Urgent Conversations: Antwerp–Athens embodies the belief that works of art constantly generate new meanings and questions, and in this way stimulate a dialogue that can form a base for our way of thinking.source

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All the pictures and the words (unless stated otherwise) are mine.

Thank you for reading and if you want to know more about me you can check out my introduction post.

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