The Bank of Greece's Art Collection - 3

60 Years of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, Some of the art in their collection 

The bank's collection comprises more than 7,000 works of painting, printmaking, sculpture, drawings, illustrated books, tapestries, mosaics and ceramics. A fraction of it is displayed at the Benaki Museum. It spans the whole of the 20th century, giving us an overview of how Greek art developed in that period.

This is the third and final post on this exhibition. If you want to see the other two posts you can go here and here

Andreas Vourloumis, Seated Young Man, 1959, (oil on canvas)

Mentis Bostantzoglou, Erotokritos and Aretousa, 1970-79, (oil on canvas)

Giorgos Ioannou, Third Class Carriage, 1969, (oil on canvas)

Nelly Andrikopoulou, Portrait of Nata Mela, 1948-49, (ink and watercolour on paper)

Nelly Andrikopoulou, Natalia Mela painting in Spetses, 1985, (tempera on paper)

Asadour Baharian, The Linotype Setter, 1963, (oil on canvas)

Gerasimos Steris, Composition with Sea, 1930-39, (oil on canvas)

Yannis Pappas, Portrait of a Child, 1953, (tempera on paper)

Polykleitos Rengos, The Model, 1955, (mixed media on canvas)

Nikos Nikolaou, Nude Figure, 1963, (oil on canvas)

Lefteris Rorros, Composition, 1960-69, (oil on canvas)

 Stefanos Daskalakis, Portrait, 1984, (oil on canvas)

Fotis Kontoglou, Portrait of my Brother, 1938, (oil on canvas)

Edouard Sacaillan, Evoking the Spirits of my Parents, 1983, (oil on canvas)

Cleopatra Dinga, Man on the Tracks, 2007, (charcoal and gouache on paper)

Panayiotis Tetsis, Objects, 1970-79, (oil on canvas)

Dimitris Mytaras, Composition with Sunglasses, 1970, (acrylic on canvas)

Yannis Gaitis, Fira, Santorini, 1953, (oil on canvas)

Eleni Vernadaki, Form, 1973, (ceramic)

British Ceramics Biennial - Social Substance by William Cobbing

British Ceramics Biennial - Social Substance by William Cobbing

at Airspace, Stoke-on-Trent.

This was great fun. A series of video, sculpture and performance, exploring a playful and ambiguous interaction between people immersed in mounds of formless clay. 

For the past 20 years Cobbing has created surreal performative pieces that show the protagonists engaging in repetitive, almost compulsive and absurd cycles of manipulating formless clay surfaces. His work gives a definitive blurring of the boundaries between the body and landscape.

The videos were by far the best and so much fun. Jotted all around the gallery in between the videos were small ceramic plaques which re-inforced the themes of the videos: clay, the lead performer, the centre of what was going on in the gallery; hands - hands that shape and manipulate the clay:  and eyes - vision, of both the artist who creates, but also, our eyes, the viewer. The whole exhibition was an interaction between these three elements, culminating in the last video.

Obsidian Tomb, 2023

Headspace, 2023

A video played on a loop here, and we could access it through the eyes of the sculpture.

Screensaver,  2023

In order to access this, to see this, you had to put your head in the hole

hands manipulating clay, and emerging through it

Social Substance Cycle, 2023

This was the climax of the exhibition, in a room all on its own, and it started slowly, with one performer, manipulating the clay that is covering their head, and then it developed on and on with more performers joining in.

The raw clay connects the performers, extending body boundaries and merging individual identities as they make and remake themselves. The figures are caught in an endless transitional moment, as if in limbo, repeating the same apparently aimless grasping and prodding the material. These earth-clad people are caught in a loop of transforming themselves.

The clay is a character in itself, being an equal player rather than a passive subject to the creative process. Conversely, the performers often adopt a languid or deadpan demeanour, allowing the material to assert its agency over them. The state of plasticity of the clay as a slimy material allows for this drama to unfold. It sticks to the performers' head and hands, disrupting the sense of body boundaries.

More hands joining in

and then suddenly, we have more heads

and now we see more of the performers

this was unexpected

more and more clay. Where will this end?

I think you might have guessed...

We had such fun watching this, and so much laughter... in the end we became quite silly.

 

Masters at the Alimos Municipal Gallery

I have written before about the Alimos Municipal Gallery. It's wonderful having such a resource near where we live. You can go here to read more about it.

The Masters

 at the Alimos Municipal Gallery.

A collection of paintings by some of the most important Greek contemporary artists. 

Giannis Psychopaides, The Letter that Didn't Arrive, (mixed media), 1981

looking closer

Nikos Hatzikyriakos-Ghikas, Jason and Medea, (varnished plaster)

Apostolos Georgiou, Untitled, (oil on canvas)

Sotiris Sorogas, Erifyli, 2014, (colour pencils on paper)

Chronis Botsoglou, Diary Pages, 1983, (aquarelle and pencil on paper)

Eugenios Spatharis, Uncle Giorgos, (shadow puppet, acrylic paint on leather)

Eugenios Spatharis, Karagiozis, (shadow puppet, acrylic on leather)

Spiros Vassiliou, Lamp, 1982, (oil on canvas)

Giannis Tsarouchis, Panaretos, 1986, (pastels and colour pencils on paper)

Konstantinos Parthenis, Female Portrait, (pencil drawing)

Konstantinos Parthenis, Exhibition Poster, 1920

Alekos Fasianos, In Front of the Mirror, (oil on canvas)

Dimitris Mytaras, Two Female Figures, (pastels on board)

Dimitris Mytaras, Female Figure, (pastels on board)

Diamantis Diamantopoulos, The Drama of the Body, (oil on canvas)

Alekos Fasianos, Little Anachronistic Suite or the Life of Anastasios in 24 Hours, 1970, (oil on canvas with gold leaf)

Makis Theofylaktopoulos, Figure, 2019, (oil on canvas)

Triantafyllos Patraskidis, Erotic A, (acrylic)

Nikos Kessanlis, Untitled, (reprography)

Tassos Mantzavinos, Kafka's Dream, 2013, (acrylic on canvas)

Yannis Gaitis, Figures, (oil on canvas)

Panos Fidakis, 4 Figures Indoors, (acrylic on cardboard)

Dimitris Alithinos, My Dreams Create Images, (acrylic and mixed media on paper)

Giorgos Stathopoulos, Woman Bathing, 1974

Giorgos Stathopoulos, Woman Bathing, 1976

Giorgos Stathopoulos, Woman Bathing, 1975

As we were leaving, we saw this sculpture at the entrance. It's by Theodoros Papayiannis, titled, Immigrants. Apparently it broke and had just come back from the restorers: the break has been fixed well, but the colour is all wrong, I'm afraid to say. 

You can see the post on this exhibition here - it's worth a look as I think Papayiannis' work is wonderful.