NEON – Organisation for Culture and Development

Renaissance Stories


The NEON Organisation for Culture and Development will be participating in this year’s edition of the Athens-Epidaurus Festival with Renaissance Stories, an exhibition curated by Dimitris Palaiokrassas and featuring new works by Greek artists.



In Renaissance Stories, five contemporary Greek visual artists will create new works, exclusively for the Athens-Epidaurus Festival 2015, drawing inspiration from a historic, 1974 installation by Vlassis Kaniaris. Taking part in the exhibition will be Dimitra Vamiali, Kostas Ioannidis, Maro Michalakakos, Savvas Christodoulides and Alexandros Psychoulis.



The story of Kaniaris’s existential migration presents amazing similarities with the situation in Greece today. It is a personal story of troubles which, however, miraculously surmounts the difficulties of the artist’s life in exile. The playful mood and optimism of the 1974 installation constitute a radical confirmation of the existence of the individual and its inexhaustible capacity for survival.



ΝΕΟΝ, the D. Daskalopoulos Organisation for Culture and Development, has been supporting the Athens Festival since 2012, as part of its commitment to bring contemporary culture to the modern-day citizen and to broaden the public’s contact with contemporary art.



Depicted above are the following projects:

 


Vlassis Caniaris

Hopscotch from the Immigrants series, 1974


Environment: 6 human figures, 9 suitcases, 1 cage,

a tar paper base and a hopscotch chalk drawing

155 x 440 x 600 cm

Courtesy National Museum of Contemporary Art, Greece

©NikosMarkou



Alexandros Psychoulis

Mercy is a form of happiness, 2015


Iron, plastic cord, rope

635 x 135 cm

Commissioned by NEON Organization for Culture and Development D.Daskalopoulos

©NikosMarkou