Launched in 1993 by the Hellenic Art Galleries Association, Art-Athina stands today as one of the longest lasting contemporary art fairs in Europe and as the largest annual visual arts event in Greece attracting 18.000 visitors. A meeting point for international artistic creation, Art-Athina brings together significant Greek and foreign art galleries, cultural institutions, curators, collectors, art critics and art lovers.
Exhibitors
Cagnes sur Mer, France
Veroia, Greece
Thessaloniki, Greece
Parallel Programme
Art-Athina Contemporaries: Paradise Lost
Curator : Artemis Potamianou
The main inspiration for the exhibition Art Athina Contemporaries: Paradise Lost came from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.
Art Athina Contemporaries: Paradise Lost aspires to present more that a snapshot of the currently produced Greek and international art. It aims to establish and encourage a constructive debate among the artists, their practice and their works; a debate which will reflect the current reality and state of affairs, the artists’ concerns and the variety of their media.
Paradise Lost is an action-exhibition that aims to demonstrate art as it is shaped, produced and presented in the present time.
To this end, the artists who took part in the exhibition come from almost all the galleries represented in the main programme of Art Athina and are predominantly younger in terms of age or artistic generation.
Participant artists’ list includes:
Antonis Papadopoulos Artis Causa Gallery | Athanasia Vidali-Soula Alma Gallery | Babis Papayiannis Ekfrasi-Yianna Grammatopoulou | Bonnie Lane Anna Pappas Gallery | Christina Mitrentse Lola Nikolaou Gallery | Dan Dubowitz Mirko Mayer | Dimitra Vamiali Vamiali’s gallery | Dina Koumpouli Courtesy Agathi-Kartalos | Efi Papaioannou Astrolavos | Eftihis Patsourakis Eleni Koroneou Gallery | Elias Tsakmakis Art Zone 42 Gallery | Evangelia Spiliopoulou Kaplanon5 Gallery | Gregory Grozos Elika Gallery | Irini Bachlitzanaki Cheapart | Katerina Kalogri Technohoros Art Gallery | Konstantinos Kyrtis Alpha Art Gallery | Lina Theodorou Zina Athanassiadou | Marc Bijl The Breeder | Maria Aristotelous Penindaplinena Gallery | Marios Fournaris Peritechnon | Maria Ikonomopoulou Mulier Mulier Gallery | Miltos Michailidis Medusa Art Gallery | Nikos Arvanitis a.antonopoulou.art | Nikos Papadimitriou AD Gallery | Orestis Symvoulidis Ersi’s | Pagratis Pagratides Skoufa Gallery | Panagiotis Paloglou Argo Gallery | Panos Tsagaris Kalfayan Galleries | Pasquale De Sensi ARTcore Gallery | Peggy Kliafa Kappatos Gallery | Roderik Henderson Donopoulos IFA Gallery | Roi Alter Joey Ramone Gallery | Sabine Rosenberger Francoise Heitsch | Tula Plumi CAN Christina Androulidaki Gallery | Vasilis Avramidis Tsatsis Projects / Artforum | Vasso Pikou Gallery Papatzikou
Open Form Exhibition
Curator/Coordinator: Marina Fokidis
Open Form will be an open structure exhibition in the ground floor of Art-Athina venue where galleries will participate with one piece or a series. The pieces will be displayed in the form of a common show.
A number of invited international galleries sent proposals of works for the Open Form structure. The proposals were selected by the curator together with the director of Art-Athina.
Open Form exhibition will be providing a complementary -to the main art fair programme- view on contemporary art and production, and together one more opportunity for visitors to get a close and direct experience of contemporaneity. It will be a platform for international exchange of contemporary art and practice.
Symposia @ Art-Athina
Curator/Coordinator: Marina Fokidis
On the occasion of the Art-Athina, a number of international curators and writers will be coming in Greece to present and discuss their curatorial methodologies and challenges.
What is the object of contemporary curating?
What are the new and changed conditions within which curators work?
In what extend the topographical environment influences art practices and production?
What is art, for whom and why in the contemporary social, political and economical area?
The two main thematic strands of the Symposia will be the notions of contemporary “biennials” as a paradigm of the mega show which happens sporadically under a steady pace, as well as the notion of the contemporary “institution” (museum, art center, meeting place , production agency) as a paradigm of building permanency within the era of ever changing parallel lives.
There will be two days of 15-minute presentations by each participant and then a round table for discussion and answering questions of the public.
Speakers:
Chiara Bertola, curator of Contemporary art in Querini Stampalia Venice and the Furla Prize Bologna
Kimberly Bradley, freelance journalist Monocle, Art Review, Art Agenda , NY times and more
Florence Derieux, director of the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne in Reims)
Galit Eilat, research curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and President of the Akademie der Kunste der Welt in Cologne
Juan A. Gaitán, curator of the Berlin Biennial 2014
Jens Maier-Rothe, co-founder and director of Beirut, Cairo
Ricardo Nicolau, deputy to the director of the Serralves Museum
Filipa Ramos, art critic based in London and Milan
Alya Sebti, artistic director of the 5th Marrakech Biennale
Marieke van Hal, founding director of Biennial Foundation
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, writer and critic based in Beirut
Adnan Yildiz, artistic director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart
Platform Project @ Art-Athina
Coordinator : Artemis Potamianou
The objective of the project is to map artistic action as it is produced in the context of collective initiatives by artists who decide to join forces in seeking answers to artistic questions by creating the so-called platforms.
The project will help promote the various artists’ groups, collectives, platforms, artist-run spaces and independent art spaces of a non-commercial (non-profit) orientation which operate in unconventional ways, in Greece as well as abroad, managing to establish unexpected debates on art.
The artist-run platforms-group are given the opportunity to present an art project at a specific site—booth—and thus provide a picture of the independent art scene.
Platform Project @ Art Athina will present 45 platforms – artists’ initiatives from 16 countries with more than 500 artists.
The platforms come from: Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Switzerland, UK, Germany, Austria, Bosnia – Herzegovina, Sweden, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Finland, France, Russia, Serbia.
Tribute to the Desmos Art Gallery
Coordinator: Manos Stefanidis
Within the parallel programme, Art Athina 2013 will present a tribute to the historical gallery Desmos. Greek gallery Desmos, which was operated for 22 years, contributed significantly to the evolution of Modern Greek art.
