A Place Called Space: Art and lunch

Sunday, 19 February 2012

Art and lunch

A cold but sunny day yesterday and time is running out... soon we will be in cold Leamington Spa, so a stroll round Metaxourgeio and Gazi was the order of the day.

First, the Municipal Gallery in Metaxourgeio where there is an exhibition of Maria Mylona-Kyriakidi's work

Untitled

Untitled, 1986

Untitled, 2009

2003, (spray with acrylic on canvas)

2001, (mixed media on canvas)

Self-portrait, 2001

Self-portrait

Self-portrait, 2001

When we left the gallery we started walking towards Gazi.

On the way we came upon some R. D. Laing-inspired graffitti - "terror is the warmth of the family"

Ken liked this one.

I love Gazi. The area around the square is particularly lovely during the day when it is quiet. Gazi is the 'in' place to be and at night it's packed with people milling about, the music blares out from the bars and clubs and hundreds of cars and motorbikes are crawling through the streets - consequently it gets very noisy and polluted. During the day it is bliss!

Mamacas is our favourite place so we asked the extremely helpful waiter if he could move a table in the sun for us which he reluctantly did, not because he didn't want to, but because he was worried we might get cold - understandably so, as it was 10oC.

Before serving us gigandes (butter beans in tomato sauce), beetroot salad, fava (a kind of dahl) with caramelised onions, homemade chips and wine, he asked again if we would not prefer to sit inside but we wanted to soak up the sun,

admire the kumquat,

the hyacinths and the general ambience.

Our next stop was the Made in Britain exhibition at the Benaki Museum on Pireos Street, a display of a few items from the the extensive art collection of the British Council.