Olympic Memorabilia
Rethymnon Contemporary Art Centre (today's Contemporary Art Museum of Crete)
Art Space "8", 8, Himaras Street – Rethymnon
Exhibition Opening: Monday, September 8, 2003, 19:00
Duration: September 9 - September 28, 2003
A new exhibition was hosted in autumn 2003 by Rethymnon Contemporary Art Centre. It was entitled Olympic Memorabilia 1896-1956, an Alpha Bank production that the Rethymnon Centre has gladly accepted to host in the Art Space "8".
The exhibition "Olympic Memorabilia 1896-1956" was a traveling exhibition organized by Alpha Bank in collaboration with the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive. The exhibition was launched in April 2003 with the aim to be presented it by May 2004 in 8 cities in Greece, as well as in Cyprus.
In February 2001, Alpha Bank was declared a Grand National Sponsor – Official Bank of the Olympic Games ATHENS 2004. Under its sponsorship, Alpha Bank supports and promotes diverse Olympic programs (Panorama of Olympic Sports, Classic Marathon of Athens and Volunteering with the participation of 500 volunteers-employees of the bank), thus aiming at a maximum promotion of the Olympic ideal and the involvement of all Greeks in the success of this great national venture.
The exhibition entitled Memorabilia of the Olympic Games 1896-1956 and the publication that accompanied it aimed to bring the public close to the history of the modern Olympic Games, an institution whose path follows, affects and is affected by the international economic, social and technological developments, which have been dramatic throughout the 20th century. In line with these developments are the conditions concerning the organization of the Games, the attitudes of athletes and spectators, the opportunities for commercialization and the diffusion of the Olympic Idea and sports.
The exhibition featured samples of the rich artistic corpus accompanying the Olympic Games from 1896 to 1956 through a series of documents and archival material, mainly derived from collections belonging to E.L.I.A., but also from the Benaki Museum Photographic Archive, the album "Olympia Leni Riefenstahl" as well as the archive of M. Tsagaris.
Specifically, this exhibition presented three of the covers of the album entitled Greece during the Olympic Games of 1896 published by the newspaper "Akropolis", painted by famous painters of the time such as Georgios Roilos, Angelos Giallinas and Pavlos Mathiopoulos.
Apart from aesthetically pleasing illustrations, however, a very rich documentation was also published and circulated during the Olympic Games, with advertising and information material divided into two categories: pure sporting leaflets such as the General Rules and the Olympic Games Timetable and leaflets related to the institution of the Cultural Olympiads, with painting, sculpture or architecture competitions that paralleled the sporting events.
The exhibition presented representative samples of the Cultural Olympiads of Berlin in 1936 and Helsinki in 1940.
The pattern of the man-athlete occupies a prominent place in the illustration of these publications. This exhibition provided an opportunity to follow the evolution of this figurative model; the consideration of the subject by two female photographers of the time having the same age, Greek Nelly's and German Leni Riefenstahl, becomes a trigger for fruitful comparisons.
Rethymnon's location almost in the centre of the island gave everyone the opportunity to take part in the experience of reading the documentary of the exhibition, which was also a celebration of the upcoming Olympics.
The exhibition was curated by: Irini Orati, Giannis Papadopoulos, Aris Rapidis, Despina Tsourgianni and Aristoula Fassiani.
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