A perfect day

We went to the Benaki Museum on Vasilissis Sofias yesterday to look at the 'Time, people and their stories' exhibition. What made this exhibition interesting, besides the exhibits, was the fact that the sculptures, installations, paintings and projections were scattered amongst the permanent exhibits of ancient Greek sculptures, 18th + 19th century jewellery, costumes, etc. There was no map, so it was a magical mystery tour of all three floors, trying to find all the modern exhibits.

This gave me a shock, as at first I did not realise that this was not a 'live' person and furthermore, one without a head!

We then went on to this, a sculpture made of strip lights, some wearing clothes.

Ken had to have a sit down here.

This is called 'subversion'. It reminded us of recent events in Athens and the May '68 slogan of  'sous les paves, la plage'.

A 'bling' skeleton (Damian Hirst, eat your heart out) set in the middle of a rood screen.



Another rood screen, this time with Mickey Mouse holding an electric candle. Quite iconoclastic, particularly in a theocracy like Greece.

We loved this one. This was in a small room representing a 19th century home. These men wearing underpants were projected onto the panelling. You could hear water dripping and occasionally a voice murmuring 'underpants'.

A big installation in the middle of the floor, fluorescent lights again and men wearing pyjamas, or is it convicts' clothes or those of concentration camp victims?



This was on the edge of the atrium. The figure is holding a hurriane lamp on a long wire which is suspended over the atrium, dangling just above the head of an ancient greek statue.

Difficult to see at this angle, but this figure has three legs. Ken couldn't get a word out of him.

We then went up to the second floor terrace to look at Stratos Kavalieratos' windpowered sculptures: they are studded with small lightbulbs which are switched on by the movement of the propellers - must be quite a sight at night.

The terrace with its flowers and lemon trees in pots looked so gorgeous, so we had to stay there and have lunch. It was a glorious, warm, sunny day and the lunch was delicious.

A perfect day!