Art Box
It took us 16 hours, and practically 3 continents to get to Athens with a stopover at Doha along the way. The Qatar capital will soon host a huge Murakami exhibit, but for now, all we had to play with was the terminal, that reminded us of the Middle Eastern version of LaGuardia. Though it has to be said: those elite traveler shuttle buses are mighty impressive.
But back to Athens… It’s a strange time for a Greek capital with widespread talks of defaults and national bankruptcy. Yes, the folks might be scared but they still have the Parthenon and Acropolis here, and now their very own Gagosian to boot. The Greek outpost is located on the magically named Merlin Street and it’s very intimate to say the least. There are only 6 Hirst works on display, and yet like in every other Gagosian location, a focused guard is fiercely watching over the pieces in every room (seriously, what was the security budget for this thing?). The gallery attendants also get gold stars for being the friendliest so far on our journey.
Merlin Street is also filled with orange trees that can be found on every decent street corner (instant Hong Kong déjà vu!) and the art scene is showing promises. The Greek Gagosian girls kindly recommended us few shows: Jonathan Meese effort at Eliades, 20th century Russian painters show at a beautiful B & M Theocharakis Foundation (pictured), and a strong group effort at Rebecca M. Camnhi gallery (that featured works by Ross Bleckner and Nan Goldin among others).
And then of course our hotel concierge named Alexandro recommended a wonderful soulvaki place on Byron, which might be the greatest piece of art of them all.
Brazilian art momentum is rising. Just last month, Iguatemi hosted Steven Klein in South America, and now the brand is taking its art sponsorship many steps further. 219 works by the likes of Jeff Koons, Tom Sachs, Richard Prince, Nan Goldin, Matthew Barney, Damien Hirst, and many others, will be making their South American debut in São Paulo next week at the group show at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.
Sachs (who’s taking a break from his NASA mission for Creative Time), Nate Lowman, and Norwegian curator Gunnar Kvaran will all be stamping their passports in Brazil to fete the opening of the exhibition. And the works are in pretty big league. “The objective of the Biennal museum is to show what is happening in the world of contemporary art, and the Astrup Fearnley collection is one of the best examples in the world in this sense,” said Heitor Martins, president of the São Paulo Biennial. Sounds like good excuse to get a visa!
