The art trail , October 2020 - part 1

Last week we decided to go to Athens and visit some of the private galleries in Kolonaki. It was a nice walk, and we popped into lots of galleries and had a look at their first shows of the autumn. Our taxi dropped us off at the Mastiha shop which is a real cornucopia of all kinds of products that are mastiha-based: biscuits, flours, drinks, loads of things in jars, etc.

Our first art stop was Zoumboulakis Galleries, the shop.

First we looked at the window, where it says: 'We all have psychological problems, baby'. Don't ask me, I don't know.

This shop used to be across the road, and it was one of my favourites. Since they relocated however, they tend to sell items that are reproductions of art works or ones that have been influenced by artists, and it's not as good. It's still worth having a look, though.

Mobiles inspired by Alexander Calder.

Figures inspired by Kazimir Malevich

This is an original, but I did not record the name of the artist

Next, opposite Zoumboulakis galleries, the art shop of the Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas Benaki Museum Annex

a sculpture by Iosifina Kosma

Yannis Zois

Gallery Ekfrasi is just round the corner, featuring a group exhibition

Kostas Tsolis, Now Dad, 2013 (acrylic on canvas)

Mihalis Manousakis, Untitled, 2018, (acrylic and charcoal on wood)

Juliano Kaglis, The Wave II, 2020, (oil on canvas)

Juliano Kaglis, Standing Woman, 2020, (oil on canvas)

Spiros Koursaris

Spiros Koursaris, Sixtriptych,  2020

We left the gallery, admired this tiny building sandwiched between two larger ones

 and started walking up Pindarou Street

I liked this building, and I liked it even more when I realised that it's a Centre for Researching Equality Issues

I also like this piece of street art with its pun on the drachma

The Loss and the Rest at Zoumboulakis Galleries, was our next stop.

Eric Stephany, 2020

Theodopoulos Polyviou, Zappeiio. 2020

Bryony Dunne, Mara, 2019

I find video art boring and tend to avoid it. I enjoyed this one, however.

Mara, a white tailed eagle, soars above the invisible border of Northern Ireland with a miniature camera on her back. From this vantage point, she becomes an instrument of surveillance, capturing nature. Her ease of travel over historically contested geographies points to the arbitrary and temporary character of man-made borders, as well as to the unnatural hierarchies that citizenship imposes on peoples' movement. Natural law, on the other hand, seems to cut across the dividing lines of states and species. Yet, Mara's descent onto Grianan of Alleach (Temple of the Sun)  - the ancient hilltop fort located close to the Northern Irish border - reminds us of our age-old tendency to construct walls, fences, ditches and a range of boundaries.

Dimitri Efeoglou, Amplitude 1, 2019

Dimitri Efeoglou, Untitled, 2018, (graphite, paper)

Kolonaki square is across the road from the gallery

Epinikio, by Giorgos Georgakis is situated in the middle of it