Territories / Communities
On Friday, June 22, 2001, three new exhibitions were inaugurated by the Rethymnon Center for Contemporary Art (today Contemporary Art Museum of Crete).
The exhibitions “Territories" and "Communities" opened in the art space "8", at 8 Himaras Street and presented works of 17 contemporary Greek artists while the exhibition “Leaving behind the wartime years 1940-1960" focused on the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, with works by Voula Papaioannou, Thanasis Tsagris, Dimitris Harisiadis, Maria Hrousaki, Ippokratis Zimeris.
The exhibition "Territories" explored personal space, far or near, physical or mental, and included works that the artists began working in the ‘90s continuing to evolve them to date. The 9 artists were Achilleas Nassios, Nikos Markou, Natalie Danenberg, Stratos Kalafatis, Panos Kokkinias, Lia Nalbandidou, Kostas Kolokythas, Paris Petridis and Efi Palaiologou.
The exhibition "Communities" brings to surface the bonds created among people, regarding ideas, beliefs, interests and even failures. Members of a "community" share the experience of being as well as experiences based on shared values.
The eight participating artists, namely Dimitra Lazaridou, Spyros Staveris, Vassilis Natsioulas, Giannis Marapas, Periklis Alkidis, Naya Giakoumaki, Dafni Rokkou, Savvas Christodoulidis, interpret, each one of them in their own way, this coexistence, defining the identity of the space in which they operate. So they act both in unstable worlds (instability due to historical and economic factors) as well as in relatively stable social groups, in cities or villages, in the environment of art but also in the context of family identity.
The exhibition section "Leaving behind the wartime years 1940-1960" (part 1), focused on the works of V. Papaioannou, D. Charisiadis, M. Chrousakis, T. Tsagris, I. Zimeris, photographers of this era, who as witnesses of everyday life carried away by the stream and the mutations of times, recorded, with a unique lyrical humanism that would subsequently influence entire generations of artists their camera, time and space.
The Exhibitions "Territories" and "Communities” are co-productions of the Galerie Le Château d' Eau of the Municipality of Toulouse, the Art Center of Larissa and the Photographic Center of Skopelos while the exhibition "Leaving behind the wartime years 1940-1960" is a production of the Photographic Center of Skopelos with works on loan from the National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum and the Benaki Museum's Photographic Archives.
With these exhibitions, curated by the Artistic Director of the Photographic Center of Skopelos, Vangelis Ioakeimidis, the three – part tribute to photography by the Rethymnon Center for Contemporary Art was completed, a tribute that began with the presentation of works by the English photographer Cecil Beaton and continued with the group of Greek and foreign artists in the exhibition "A Vindication of Tlon".
At the same time, at the premises of the Municipal Art Gallery "L. Kanakakis" the exhibition of the Permanent Collection -which, after a rather long journey in Athens, Larissa and Patras, returned to Rethymnon- was inaugurated.
It was a journey through the works of Greek artists from 1950 to date. At the same time, the new acquisitions of the Permanent Collection were presented.
The exhibitions ran until August 30, 2001.
