Chryssa. Cycladic Books 1957 - 1996
The Rethymnon Center for Contemporary Art in collaboration with Alpha Bank presented in Rethymnon two exhibitions with works of two important Greek diaspora artists, Gerassimos Steris - Drawings 1920-1935, and Chryssa - Cycladic Books, included in the Bank's Collection. The exhibitions, whose inauguration took place on Saturday, June 10 2000, were housed in the two-storey Artillery building in the city's Venetian castle and remained open to the public until 30 July 2000.
Chryssa, an artist with international influence, honored Greece and the world with her multi-faceted, multi-dimensional work. She studied in Paris and San Francisco (1953 -1954). In 1955 she moved to New York. On December 23, 2013 she died in Athens. The works exhibited in Rethymnon belonged to the Cycladic Books series, which were presented with great success in 1997 at the Nicholas P. Goulandris Foundation - Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. The Cycladic Books, made of Pentelian marble or plaster, were created in the period 1957-1962 and are monumental, although their dimensions do not suggest such. The artist, after the completion of the project, named the series “Cycladic Books”, as she was amazed by the similarity between her plaster reliefs and some ancient, marble, Cycladic idols.
Barbara Rose, in the catalog of the ΄97 exhibition writes: “…."the Cycladic Books do not represent but literally are a tabula rasa. They are a vacuum. They stand for a new beginning, specifically the existential condition in which Chryssa found herself as an expatriate. For Chryssa, the Cycladic Books are the first step in creating a personal vocabulary of forms....”
The Rethymnon exhibition included the twelve works of the series, ten of which belong to Alpha Bank.
The ALPHA Bank collection includes thirty-seven drawings by Gerasimos Steris, from the period 1920-1935.
The exhibition was curated by Katerina Koskina, Curator of the ALPHA Bank Art Collection.
On the occasion of the exhibition, a bilingual catalog (Greek-English) with photographs of the works presented was released. Katerina Koskina signs the text on Chryssa and Costas Stavropoulos the one on Gerasimos Steris. The publication was accompanied by introductory notes by the Bank's Management and Maria Marangou, Director of the Rethymnon Center for Contemporary Art (today Contemporary Art Museum of Crete - CCA).
During the exhibition, guided tours and educational programs were held.
