World Media on Greece - Culture and Education
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Athens Biennial: Multinational Visions of Heaven (artinfo.com, 01.07.09) |
The second Athens Biennial, titled “Heaven” takes place along the coast of Athens, about a 45-minute tram ride from the city center.
The Athens Biennial is organized by the artistic directors XYZ and features 141 artists and collaboratives from 26 countries. It runs from June 15 through October 4 and it is housed in an indoor parking garage left over from the 2004 Olympics.
Beside the five central exhibitions at the public beach “Eden”, the Biennial hosts performatory events — namely “Heaven-Live,” a series of temporary performance-based works curated by Dimitris Papaioannou and Zafos Xagoraris — and a series of off-site projects and installations in seven other venues along the waterfront. Read more…
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Greek Film Dogthooth wins Award at Cannes |
According to Erich Kohn's report from Cannes "this fascinating Orwellian drama about parents who withold their children from society with a series of twisted games forms a thrilling, sharply realized parable. The true Cannes discovery of the year, it stunned everyone I know who saw it."
See also:
Dogtooth Review @ Variety MagazineDogtooth Review @ Cineuropa.com
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Chris Stewart: The start of the affair with Greece (telegraph.co.uk, 31.05.09) |
Chris Stewart, writer of the best-seller ''Driving over Lemons'', publishes an extract of his new book ''Three Ways to Capsize a Boat; An Optimist Afloat'', describing his visit to the island of Spetses.
Stewart talks about the beauties of the island, the colours, the scents, the tastes, creating a magical image of Spetses.
Moreover, he refers to the natives of Spetses and all the other people he met there and helped him feel the real life of the island, explaining how he fell in love with Greece – and became an accidental sailor.
Read the extract here.
See also:
Chris Stewart at WikipediaSpetses Island Official Website
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ART-ATHINA 2009: International Contemporary Art Fair of Athens Opens at Faliro Pavilion (Artdaily.org, 23.05.09) |
ART-ATHINA, Greece’s leading international art fair for contemporary art and one of Europe’s most prominent art fairs opened its 15th edition on May 21.
This year the fair is located at the shorefront of Athens, in the Faliro Pavilion, a former Olympic Games venue.
ART-ATHINA welcomes 60 galleries from 12 countries, presenting more than 300 artists, providing its international audience with an overview of emerging trends within the arts. Visitors can see and buy works from leading international artists.
The fair also hosts an expansive program of parallel events taking place both within the fair and throughout the city. The exhibition “10 Aspects of Hellenic Photography – Contemporary Creation” is a major parallel exhibition featuring 100 works from 10 young Greek photographers. The performance festival “OPA 0.2 (On Performance Art)” is a seven-day festival featuring an intense program of performances, films, screenings, lectures, talks and open discussions. The exhibition “In Praise of Shadows” presented at the Benaki Museum comprises some 90 works. Read more…
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Antiquities returned to Greece (Reuters, 19.05.09) |
More than 200 classical and medieval antiquities, from ancient coins and vases to parts of a Byzantine church, were returned to Greece.
Germany, Belgium and Britain, followed Italy's offer of two Parthenon fragments to the New Acropolis Museum last year.
The artifacts were presented at a special ceremony in Athens Archaeological Museum by Greece's Culture Minister Antonis Samaras who stated: “We are moved to receive today... these parts of our cultural heritage. These are not just pieces of art, but precious links to people's historical identity”.
The return of those artifacts along with the opening of the New acropolis Museum are expected to strengthen Greece’s international campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum. Read more…
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Aristotle school to become open-air museum in Athens, sponsor raises money for project (www.newsday.com, 30.04.2009) |
The remains of the ancient school where philosopher Aristotle taught his pupils nearly 2,500 years ago are to be turned into an outdoor museum.
Aristotle, who lived from 384 to 322 B.C., studied under Plato and tutored Alexander the Great. Later, in Athens, he taught on the grounds of the Lyceum, a public sports complex frequented by the city's young men.
The Lyceum was considered one of the three greatest schools of philosophy in ancient Greece and archaeologists had sought its remains for more than 150 years. Ironically, the remains were finally found at the end of a modern street named after the ancient school. Read more…
See also:
Aristotle at the Foundation of the Hellenic WorldThe Lyceum at Wikipedia
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Lucas Samaras will represent Greece at the biennale in Venice (www.grreporter.info, 15.04.09) |
Lucas Samaras is the Greek Ministry of Culture’s choice for the representation of Greece at the 53rd International Contemporary Art Biennale to be held in Venice this year, from June 7th to November 22nd. He will present his work “Paraxena” (Strangeness) to symbolize his 50 years as an artist.
Samaras, born in Kastoria, northern Greece, in 1936, is one of the most important artists of installations. He went to the U.S. at an early age and was granted a scholarship for Rutgers College. He was taught by Alan Kaprov and George Segal, among others.
He shortly became famous all over the U.S., as his work was exhibited in the most prominent museums worldwide (MoMa in New York, the Contemporary Art Museums in L.A. and San Fransisco, Tate Gallery in London and the National Art Gallery in Athens). Moreover, his creations were used in Oliver Stone’s “Wallstreet”.
His work is multidimensional; he has experimented with digital photography and computers, among other things. Read more...
See also:
Lucas Samaras at Wikipedia La Biennale di Venezia
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Greece Returns Two Stolen Frescoes to Italy in ‘Symbolic Move’ (Bloomberg.com, 23.03.09) |
Greece handed over to Italy two pieces of art, in the spirit of cooperation on the battle against smuggling antiquities. They were two thirteenth century frescoes, which had been found in 2006 on Schinoussa Island by Greek authorities conducting an anti-smuggling operation.
Initially, these fragments, depicting two saints, were part of wall paintings from a chapel at Grotta delle Fornelle, in Italy's southern Caserta region near Naples. They were removed in 1982.
Greek Minister of Culture, Mr. Samaras pointed out that through this symbolic gesture, Greece intends to continue the process of retrieving artifacts illegally transported to other countries, thus strengthening collaboration with Italy on the fight against art theft.
Italy and Greece launched a joint battle some years ago to crack down on trafficking and reclaim smuggled works from museums around the world. Read more…
See also:
Greece returns stolen paintings to Italy (IHT, 23.03.09)Greece Returns Looted Frescoes (ANSA, 23.03.09)
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Shirin Neshat, Women without Men (e-flux.com, 10.03.09) |
The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (EMST) presents the new monumental opus of the Iranian- American artist Shirin Neshat, Women without Men, which begun in 2004 and was completed in 2008. Shirin Neshat , born in 1957 in Kazvin, Iran, received the First International Prize at the XLVIII Venice Biennale in 1999.
Neshat's new work, which is composed of five video installations, is based on a banned book from 1989 by the Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur. The artist narrates five parallel stories of women who come from different social classes and, following different paths, meet in a garden in the town of Karaj.
The first part tilted Mahdokht, was a commission by EMST and premiered at the Transcultures exhibition during the Cultural Olympiad in 2004. Women without Men runs from March18 to May 31, 2009. Read more…
See also:
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Costa-Gavras lends touch of magic to immigrant tale (Reuters, 06.03.09) |
"Eden Is West" Costa Gavras’ new film premiered as a noncompeting selection of the recent Berlin International Film Festival, showing a magical approach to Europe’s big immigration problem.
Elias, the main character played by Riccardo Scamarcio, is an immigrant who arrives to a European shore and tries to go to Paris, his perceived paradise. On his ways he faces exploitation by the middle class but finds poor people lending him a helping hand.
The film has strong imagery and Costa-Gavras and co-scripter Jean-Claude Grumberg have tried to give to their hero an essence of the wandering Ulysses.
Costa Gavras has, in the past, been the winner of the foreign-language Oscar for his film "Z", of Cannes Palme d'Or for the film "Missing" and of Berlin Golden Bear for the film "Music Box". Read more…
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Chinese universities participate in Greek Education Exhibition (Xinhua, 06.03.09) |
The 11th Hellenic International Exhibition on Education took place in Athens from March 6 -8 and was visited by 20,000 visitors of all ages. Among more than 250 educational institutions which participated from Greece and 14 other countries, were twenty institutions and universities from China, that intended to attract more Greek students to Chinese universities.
Li Jianmin, Head of the Chinese delegation and Deputy Secretary-General of China Scholarship Council, stated that Chinese universities have started in recent years to conduct teaching in English, whereas many scholarships have been programmed for Greek students.
Athanasios Kiriazis, Special Secretary for higher education in Greece, said that the participation of Chinese universities to the exhibition will reinforce cooperation between Greece and China, and added that Chinese studies are to be included in Greek universities. Read more…
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Irene Papas to receive Venice theatre award (ANA, 21.02.09) |
The 40th International Theatre Festival dedicated to the Mediterranean begun on Friday February 20, in Venice with the famous Greek actress Irene Papas being awarded the Golden Lion (Leone d'oro) for Lifetime Achievement.
“A Greek actress of international renown, Irene Papas is one of Europe’s most famous artists who over her 50-year career has played important female roles in theatre and in film (many in classical tragedy) becoming, in the eyes of the world, the spokeswoman and symbol of the Mediterranean culture, the very incarnation of the power of Greek tragedy“, reads the statement whereby Irene Papas is attributed the award.
The ceremony took place inside the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale and after receiving the award, Papas performed Euripides's "Medea".
Irene Papas has played in many Greek and international films and has received numerous awards for her distinguished achievement. Read more…
See also:
Biennale Theatre 40th International Theatre Festival Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Irene Papas Irene Papas to receive Golden Lion for stage career (lifeinitaly.com, 16.12.08)Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Irene Papas (AgendaVenezia.org) Actress Irene Papas Wins Int’l Award (GreekNewsAgenda, 12.01.09)
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Renzo Piano’s Athens cultural centre images unveiled (bdonline.co.uk, 09.02.09) |
The concept design of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center at the Faliron Delta area in Athens has been revealed to the public.
The Cultural Centre will house the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera within the Stavros Niarchos Park. Its completion is scheduled for 2015. It is a private-public endeavor and its construction is expected to cost 450 million euros, financed entirely by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
The building, whose site is approximately 187,800 square meters, is targeted to have zero carbon emissions and a roof made entirely of interconnected photovoltaic cells will provide the energy needed.
“The centre’s proximity to water, and the warm breezes and light of Athens were particularly inspiring during the design process. It was immediately clear that we must take advantage of all these elements to design a building with zero emissions that expresses movement and energy.” said Renzo Piano. Read more…
See also:
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center by Renzo Piano (archdaily.com, 02.02.09)Renzo Piano: Environmentally Progressive Concept Design for Athens' Modern Urban Icon (Reuters, 27.01.09)Renzo Piano unveils major project (ekathimerini.com, 21.01.09)Renzo Piano Building Workshop
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Stephen G. Miller: A Classicist in Greece (SperoNews 08.02.09) |
Famous archaeologist Stephen G. Miller speaks to SperoNews and Heinrich Hall about his life and his excavations at Nemea.
Miller, former professor of archaeology at Berkeley and ex-director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, is among the most distinguished foreign archaeologists in Greece.
He is the one who transformed the site of Ancient Nemea into a major attraction featuring a partially re-erected temple, well-preserved stadium and excellent museum.
In 1996, Miller revived the Nemean Games.
In the interview he speaks about his experiences in Greece, about archaeology, about Nemea and his findings there as well as the expected discoveries on the site. Moreover he talks about the Nemean Games revival and Plato as the protagonist of a children’s book he wrote. Read more…
