During the ancient and medieval times, Greece was the world capital of culture, making an invaluable contribution to the development of science and art around the world. But despite this fact, now we can not talk about it. For many years, the beginning and the professional Greek artists together with sculptors who had not found good exhibition platforms in their native land, were forced to show their works in the galleries of other countries. This was not easy, because it is difficult for newcomers to make names for themselves in the world community.
This continued until the National Museum of Contemporary Art was established in Athens, which became not only a platform for temporary and permanent exhibitions in Greece, but also an active member of the world community of museums, establishing close cultural ties.
Due to this fact, the modern art of Athens was came into the spotlight all over the world. Thus, The New York Times included Athens in the list of 52 art tourism destinations in 2017, and National Geographic magazine placed the Greek graffiti maker Jason on its front page and published a number of articles about promising young talents. And one of the interactive exhibitions "Face Forward ... into my home" received a special mention in the European CLARINET award for public work on immigration and integration.
The Museum of Contemporary Art has been working since 2000. Its permanent location is the restored building of the former brewery on Syngrou Avenue. The building was built in 1961 by the talented Greek architect Takis Zenetos in collaboration with Margaritis Apostolidis. It was empty for many years. In 1984, the state-owned company Attiko Metro S.A. pulled down a half of the northern part of the building to build the metro station stop. After that, in 2002, a lease agreement was signed for a period of 50 years and the building was put out to tender for its reconstruction aimed at turning it into a museum. The 3SK Stylianidis Architects Company won — it managed to turn an industrial building into an art center.
The building covers an area of more than 18 000 square metres, while the foundation area is just 3123 square meters.
The period from 2003 to 2008 can be called as wandering one, because the museum was placing its exhibitions in the Athens Concert Hall, the Athens School of Fine Arts or in the sections of the Athens Conservatory.
The museum returned to its permanent residence in 2015. From the autumn of 2016 to the beginning of 2019, the temporary exhibition areas of the building, classrooms, a museum shop and other rooms were actively used to hold lectures, seminars, film screenings and dance performances.
Since the first exhibition in 2016, the museum has established itself as a member of the global community of museums, which is open to dialogue and joint arrangements. Thus, in 2016, the exhibition “Urgent Conversations: Athens — Antwerp” was held. This was a collaboration with the Antwerp Museum of Modern Art.
In 2017, a collaboration with “Documenta 14” took place. “Documenta” is an exhibition that takes place every five years and is held for 100 days in Kassel (Germany). It was founded by artist Arnold Bode in 1955 as a part of the traditional Federal gardening exhibition. The original goal of the exhibition is to acquaint post-war Germany with modern art and banish the darkness of fascism. A large number of artists took part in it, whose art has had a significant impact on the development of culture (Picasso and Kandinsky). It is an interesting fact that in 2017 all of 4 significant events in the art world were opened at the same time: the “Venice Biennale”, “Art Basel”, “Skulptur Projekte Münster” and “Documenta”.
Within the exhibition, there was a double relocation of works: the former “Fix” brewery became the exhibition area for “Documenta exhibitions”, and “Fridericianum” in Kassel became the temporary home for the exhibit in Greece. It is significant that Athens was the first foreign experience of this project, because for more than 60 years of its existence, the exhibition was held exclusively in Germany.
The next important event was the collaboration with Galleria Nazionale d'arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome. Through joint efforts of two cultural centers a one-of-a-kind project was presented, “La verità è sempre UN'altra” (“Truth Is Always Something Else”), which was available from September to November 2018. The idea of the exhibition has come up during the implementation of the “Tempo Forte Italia–Grecia 2018” program, which was initiated by the Italian Embassy in Athens. In order to strengthen the existing relations between the two countries through cultural cooperation and exchange, this temporary exhibition was created. 17 Greek artists were selected (Dimitris Alithinos, Manolis Baboussis, Vlassis Caniaris, Stathis Chryssikopoulos, Dimitris Condos, Eirini Efstathiou, Yannis Gaitis, Emily Jacir, Nikos Kessanlis, Kimsooja, Piotr Kowalski, Dimitris Kozaris, Thomas Struth, Kyrillos Sarris, Costas Tsoclis, Costas Varotsos, Mary Zygouri), who chose Italy for education or artistic research.
The latest cross-cultural exchange exhibition to date is CHINESE XIEYI: Masterpieces from the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC).
Now the Museum houses the works of such artisans as:
The museum is located at 17-19 Vasileos Georgiou B Street, Athens. If you get here by the metro, you need to get off at the Evangelismos station (Ευαγγελισμός) — Line 3 (blue).
