Exhibition programme

In addition to the flagship international exhibition Statecraft (and beyond), which explores the underlying mechanisms at work in the engineering of the nationstate, as we know it today, EMST, the National Museum of Contemporary Athens, is pleased to present four further exhibitions as part of its new artistic programme led by artistic director Katerina Gregos.

Eirini Vourloumis: In the Same Space, a photographic dialogue with the painter Andreas Vourloumis, curated by Stamatis Schizakis
In the Same Space is an artistic dialogue initiated by photographer Eirini Vourloumis with the oeuvre of her grandfather, the Greek painter Andreas Vourloumis. Vourloumis juxtaposes photos she shot with her mobile phone while wandering around Athens, with paintings, watercolours and drawings by Andreas Vourloumis depicting the city from half a century ago. Though the media are different, the process, a form of flânerie through the Greek capital, is the same. Two artists from different generations register the same city in different ways, revealing uncanny connections and surprising continuities. The exhibition creates a link between postwar and modern-day Athens, highlighting both the timelessness of the city and the changes that have defined the city as it is today. The exhibition is a personal tribute to Vourloumis senior, as well as a meditation on urban change and spaces or places that have been lost.

Antonis Pittas: jaune, geel, gelb, yellow—Acts of Modernism with Theo van Doesburg, curated by Daphne Vitali
jaune, geel, gelb, yellow pits the failure, collapse, and historicisation of the modernist ideals against the political backdrop of mass protest and the gilets jaunes movement in France. Antonis Pittas uses reflective yellow foil to recreate the silhouettes of the protesters, the police and their interactions during the protests. He sets these amidst selected drawings by Theo van Doesburg, the De Stijl movement founder and leading avant-garde figure, from the extensive holdings of the Centraal Museum, in Utrecht, van Doesburg’s birthplace. Here, the project interacts with works within the collection at EMSΤ that specifically refer to political turmoil and protest in the 1960s and 1970s, when Greece was in the grip of a military dictatorship. Taking the defeat of modernism and its belief in progress as its point of departure, Pittas prompts us to consider different aspects of political discontent. This exhibition is part of a new programme at EMSΤ that invites contemporary artists to engage with the museum’s collection.

Artist at Work: Jennifer Nelson: Waste (Inheritance)—A Public Negotiation with the Repressed, co-ordinated by Anna Mykoniati
For a year, Jennifer Nelson collected her family’s packaging and material waste. The resulting accumulated volume and mass of this procedure is well beyond the artist’s body size and weight. Until September, Nelson will be working in the museum, sculpting this discarded material into forms that can be worn on the body. Visitors are welcome to enter a temporary studio within the museum exhibition space to participate in the making of the work by crafting these materials, or simply to talk with the artist as she explores their lifecycles: a sheet of cling film, for instance, has an origin, a production-based energy cost and waste product of its own. It also has an environmental legacy, the cost of which is usually left for a future reckoning. Nelson argues that these materials are a collective sculpture that can only be judged when we look at the implications of the material across its full lifecycle.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Sonic Detective
Beirut-based artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a “private ear” whose audio-visual installations, videos, performances, photography, essays and lectures explore the political effects of listening, through the use of various kinds of audio to examine its effects on human rights and law. Abu Hamdan’s research-based practice bridges sound and politics and his audio investigations have been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and for advocacy purposes by organisations such as Amnesty International. At EMSΤ he presents two film works that probe issues such as contested borders, citizenship and freedom of movement. This is Abu Hamdan’s first solo presentation in Greece.

Statecraft (and beyond), curated by Katerina Gregos
Statecraft is an international group exhibition that explores the underlying mechanisms at work in the engineering of the nationstate, as we know it today. Read more here. 

These exhibitions are complemented by the site-specific project Amazonios, which offers an introduction to some of the unseen views of the city and takes place in the former house and studio of artists Nikos Kessanlis and Chryssa Romanos, in Polydroso a neighbourhood in the northern suburbs of Athens.

The launch of the new artistic programme coincides with a renewed mission and a new collection policy for EMST, as well as a commitment to fair pay for artists. Read more here.

Founded in 2000, EMST holds the national collection of contemporary art and is located in the former FIX Brewery, in the heart of Athens. In addition to a series of temporary exhibitions, it also currently presents a selection of over 170 works from its collection, highlighting the work of 78 artists from Greece and further afield.

EMST is funded by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sports.

Media enquiries
International: Amanda Kelly, Pickles PR
National: Kassiani Benou, EMST