metamatic:taf

On our penultimate day in Greece we went to the Plaka and Monastiraki areas  and while we were there we decided to visit the metamatic:taf gallery, as it was in that area, and we had never visited it before. Armed with the address, Normanou 5, we found Normanou Street and then started looking for number 5, but there was no gallery in sight.

This dilapidated, derelict, falling-down building is number 5, but it could not possibly be a gallery, surely not!

I then spotted this elegant, stylish plaque, metamatic:taf - what we were looking for.

In we went. This is the entrance hall. Two television screens, not shown in this photograph, were the first of many video installations that are dotted around the gallery.

This was a day, and a gallery, of surprises, because when we went through the only available door, we came upon this:

a wonderful courtyard, functioning as a café, and the contrast with the dereliction of the building was just too much.

The courtyard is enclosed on all four sides, rooms leading on to it or to the balconies of the first floor, all of them gallery spaces

as in here,

 

or here,

 



 

 

where walls have been knocked down to enhance the ambiance, and facilitate movement

Ken trying out the frame for size.

 

The balcony on the first floor

 

 

 



 

I found the whole thing totally surreal

 

A (new) Athens State of Mind  - an exploration of the new social and cultural face of the city,

 

 

 

was the exhibition we saw

We then went back to the entrance hall and up these stairs,

on to the balcony and more exhibition rooms

 

 

 

Back to the courtyard and a different staircase

and another surprise was awaiting us:

conventional gallery space,

 

 

 

 

 

white, minimalist, stylish, elegant.

 

Booooomerang an exhibition of five visual artists, all based in Barcelona

 

 

 

installations, video art, paintings

 

Sock, Miju Lee

 

  

and the model

Into another, smaller room

and Alba Marquez' photographs.




Extraordinary. An extraordinary gallery in an extraordinary city.