I woke up at Shila Athens, had coffee on a small terrace with white transparent curtains while listening to the birds chirping in the morning silence of the street with no traffic. A day filled with art and stories only life can tell was ahead of me.
First of all, I wanted to visit the Museum of Cycladic Art because of Greek history, but also the incredible synergy of Greek mythology and the works of a contemporary artist, Marlene Dumas.
I adore Marlene Dumas, I’ve been following her work for years. This time I could feel a special inspiration, because she is exhibiting her works together with archaeological specimens that are part of the Museum’s permanent collection. Her obsession with the human body and parallels in the meaning and forms of its appearance throughout history. There is admiration and at the same time something painful and strange in revealing her motives to paint human bodies with a provocative and erotic appeal, which at the same time cause concern and admiration. Marlene needs to be studied, she becomes part of the deepest world in which the need arises to dig deeper and to discover, those things that I fell in love with at first sight.
I am leaving this wonderful building full of symbols of the past and the present. Next stop is the Museum of Alekos Fassianos. The building was renovated by the famous architect and the painter’s friend Kyriakos Krokos, who wanted to preserve the memory of the area where the painter used to live when he was young. It feels like an ode to belonging. A memory of childhood and the people who marked it.
“The Myth of His End” is an exhibition of works representing local life in Athens from the 40’s to the 60’s. His childhood heroes merge with the heroes of Greek mythology, profane and sacred, creating an eternal hero, a man. In addition to paintings, other works from Fassianos’ oeuvre are on display: design pieces he created for his house, as well as archival materials, sets and costumes he made for the theater.
This is probably one of the most beautiful art spaces in Athens. The intense presence of the artist and his philosophy, you can almost hear his voice and see him move through the building while busily arranging furniture and paintings.
The highlight of the exhibition is the work “Coffee house” or “The life of coffee”, a painting that tells a story about a traditional place where people gather to drink coffee and socialize. This painting was created as a collage, from various pieces, using oil and acrylic combined. Just looking at it raises your energy, you start feeling like singing and raising your hands.
I need a break. A long walk follows and an ascend to Lycabettus hill.
That’s where an artist from Paris lives who has been intensively leaving her unusually sophisticated traces here for 10 years. I’m going to visit her at her house and the place where she creates.
When you meet Diane Alexandre, you think that Athens must be aware that she got another muse, a goddess of creation and beauty.
What is overwhelming at first glance is precisely her story about how much the characters and plots from Greek mythology marked her childhood and formed her in such a way that she wanted to bring their characters back to life. Diane makes ceramic and porcelain sculptures, drawings and paintings, jewelry. The need to create was always present, through drawings or stories. She threw out her thoughts and emotions out, as if she was freeing herself from a burden or lightness.
She feels at home in Athens. For her, mythological stories are like a school of life. They help us understand good and bad or how to choose the right path. Mom named her after Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, forest, wilderness, but also of female integrity.
Diane is infected with mythology, in the most beautiful way possible. The stories are mirrored in her life and her works.
She also told me a story about freedom, through the mythical story of Zeus and the seagull. “You can make a nest on the crest of a wave.”
….
Diane walks barefoot, smells of essential oils from the Cyclades, and while she speaks her eyes play with the rhythm of emotions. Her gestures are soft and feminine, the movements of her body gentle and uniform. While she’s showing me her ceramic figurines and sculptures, she has made in various stages of creation, it seems to me that she looks at them as if they have known each other for a long time and that their conversation never stops.
I haven’t met such a being in a long time. “Neither in heaven nor on earth”, she is truly a being from a story, a fighter and a conqueror, eternally searching for the truth. She is the guardian of nature as a sacred place from which she drinks cold, mountain water that strengthens her being.
Thanks Diane, Athens became a magical place after meeting you.
