Opening: Thursday 13 February 2025, 19:00
The unexpected, the ambiguous and the enigmatic, the imaginary and the grotesque act as a conceptual and spatial grid for the exhibition entitled "a Cabinet of Curiosities" presented at MOMus-Museum Alex Mylonas, from 13 February to 31 August 2025. The periodical exhibitions’ space of the Museum in Thissio, Athens, is “conquered” by paintings, prints, sculptures, constructions and videos ‒works remarkably diverse in style, materials, qualities, sensitivities, visual values and aesthetic preferences‒ created by 78 artists.
Emerging in Europe during the Renaissance, cabinets of curiosities came to be identified with a collecting frenzy, aesthetic pleasure and amazement through their wondrous and rare exhibits: these ranged from works of art andrelics to strange and “exotic” artifacts from distant cultures, alongside scientific tools and instruments, objects from the natural world, and items related to medicine, zoology, botany, gemology, mineralogy, and astrology, as well as to the realms of the occult, alchemy, and magic. These cabinets, which can be considered precursors to modern museums, played a pivotal role in shaping Western perceptions of the "other", while also offering an aesthetic, social, anthropological and political space wirh numerous benefits of research.
In the modern, extended Cabinet of Curiosities at MOMus-Museum Alex Mylona, in a multiple connection of images and realities, the exhibits cover a broad thematic spectrum, opening portals to different worlds, times, and regions. The stories they tell, inventive and original, explore concepts such as life and death, nature and technology, vanity and paradox, violence and threat, myth and dream, erotic desire and libido.
The exhibition "a Cabinet of Curiosities" functions as a proposal-challenge for a modern, new "cabinet" which, although apparently creates the fear of emptiness (horror vacui), can nevertheless function as a starting point for a new consideration of the present we live in.
Curated by: Yannis Bolis, Art historian, Head of Department of Contemporary Sculpture, MOMus-Museum Alex Mylona
Artists: Giorgos Alexandridis, Angelos Antonopoulos, Mairy Antonopoulou, Annita Argiroiliopoulou, Michalis Arfaras, Lena Athanasopoulou, Manolis Baboussis, Theo Bargiotas, Lina Bebi, Mania Benissi, Emmanouil Bitsakis, Margarita Bofiliou, Fani Boudouroglou, Alkis Boutlis, Pantelis Chandris, Panos Charalambous, Giorgos Chatzispyrou (Looper), Dionisis Christofilogiannis, Elli Chrysidou, Lydia Dambassina, Martha Dimitropoulou, Chris Doulgeris, Tzeni Doupi, Rania Emmanouilidou, Panos Famelis, Marios Fournaris, Marina Genadieva, Takis Germenis, Leonidas Giannakopoulos, Nikos Giavropoulos, Giorgos Gyparakis, Marion Inglessi, Nikos Kachrimanis, Antonis Kapnisis, Aris Katsilakis, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Antigoni Kavvatha, Daphne Klagkou, Yannis Kondaratos, Alexandros Maganiotis, Thanos Makris, Dimitra Marouda, Panos Mattheou, Kyriaki Mavrogeorgi, Dimitris Merantzas, Christina Mitrentse, Eva Mourtzi, Nourako (Fanouris Moraitis), Nikos Papadimitriou, Antonis Papadopoulos, Xenia Papadopoulou, Aliki Pappa, Konstantinos Patsios, Natassa Poulantza, Vasilis Poulios, Periklis Pravitas, Lia Psoma, Ifigeneia Sdoukou, Nikos Sepetzoglou, Dimitra Siaterli, Zoe Sklepa, Miltos Skouras, Marios Spiliopoulos, Andreas Spiliotopoulos, Nikos Tranos, Giorgos Tsakiris, Giorgos Tserionis, Maritasa Tsimplaki, Filippos Tsitsopoulos, Kostas Tsolis, Dimitris Tzamouranis, Andreas Vais, Vasilis Vasilakakis, Babis Venetopoulos, Andriana Verveti, Andreas Voussouras, Maria Xinopoulou, Katerina Zacharopoulou
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