New York Times: A hub for contemporary art is created in the shadow of the Acropolis

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“Many associate culture in Athens with ruins and ancient artifacts, but the Greek government and major charities want to put the city on the international map of contemporary art,” the New York Times quoted Roslyn Sulcas from Athens as saying. “A hub for contemporary art is being created ‘in the shadow of the Acropolis’.”

In the years from 2000 to 2010, the tourism campaigns of the Greek governments were summarized in “the sea, the sun and sex, with some Greek columns in the background,” Poka Yio, the artistic director of the Athens Biennale, told the American newspaper. The Biennale, which began in 2007, sought to change this stereotype: “We wanted to put Athens on the cultural map of contemporary art,” she explains.

Fifteen years later, Athens is now on the radar of the contemporary art public, albeit more as a curiosity than as a major hub. The Biennale, which took place despite the pandemic in November, had 40,000 visitors, 10,000 from abroad. “If the political forces understood how much Athens is being discussed as a contemporary cultural destination, they might have paid more attention, because that means money and a public image,” said Katerina Gregou, director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST).

The gap in government support for contemporary art was filled by private institutions such as DESTE, NEON, Onassis and Stavros Niarchos, which “played a huge role in changing attitudes towards contemporary art by creating an ecosystem,” says Poka Yio.

However, these private sector initiatives “do not replace the need for public policy”, Ms. Gregou points out and the Greek government seems to be finally agreeing. Nikolas Giatromanolakis, a Harvard graduate, was appointed secretary of modern culture in July 2019 and in early 2021 was promoted to deputy minister of culture for contemporary culture.

One of the first things that Mr. Giatromanolakis did was to open EMST quickly. “The prime minister is very supportive of the idea of ​​promoting modern culture, and Nikolas Giatromanolakis is a really brilliant guy,” said Gerasimos Giannopoulos, a lawyer and member of the EMST council. “But Greece found itself in a difficult situation after the debt crisis broke out. “And you can not turn things around by insisting on the glorious archaeological heritage.”

However, Mr. Giatromanolakis considers that “comparing the classic with the modern is counterproductive, they should cooperate” and cites as an example the exhibition of works by British artist Antony Gormley that took place in 2019 among the ruins of Delos. And the figures he gave to the New York Times show a significant increase in government funding for contemporary art projects, from about half a million dollars in 2015 to about 11 million dollars in 2020. He also cited additional European Union funds from the Recovery Mechanism and Durability, which offer another half a billion euros in the cultural sector of Greece, equally divided into programs for ancient heritage and programs for contemporary art.

But the successful support of contemporary art requires more than money, says Aphrodite Panagiotakou, director of culture at the Onassis Foundation. “In the end, the people who change the scene are the artists themselves,” he explains. “Our role is to support them, to work with them, to be there for them.”

Private institutions often cooperate closely with the state, “they do not compete with it,” says Nikolas Giatromanolakis. He adds that the most ambitious project on his agenda is a labor and social reform for independent artists, whose needs are not taken into account in current tax and employment legislation. “If we do not fix this, we will not have the tools to enable cultural professionals to make a living from their work,” he told the New York Times. “There was nothing ready for modern culture, so we have to start from scratch,” he added. “Despite the horrible things the pandemic has brought, I think we can use it as a turning point.”

Athens, with an influx of immigrants and artists, is a rising metropolis, “a counterweight to the London-Paris-Berlin tripod,” says Poka Yio, the Biennale’s director. “In Greece we lost modernism and now we are trying to make huge leaps,” he added. “We do not have many of the systems and structures that other countries have. But this is also very positive and part of what makes Athens so charming. “Everything is still possible in this place.”

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