27 contemporary Greek artists participated in an exhibition organized by the State Museum of Contemporary Art of Thessaloniki at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. The exhibition was inaugurated on 24 September by the Greek Minister of Culture and Sports, Lydia Koniordou, who was a keynote speaker at the 7th Beijing Biennial of Contemporary Art. The exhibition was part of the parallel program.
The exhibition was titled “The Body, The Soul and The Place. Contemporary Greek Artists”. It took place within the framework of the Cultural Year of Greece and China and run from September 24 to October 15, 2017. The curators of the exhibition were Dr. Maria Tsantsanoglou, Director of the Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art and Dr. Syrago Tsiara, Director of the Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art.
The exhibition aimed to highlight the dynamism and extroversion of contemporary Greek art in China, a country that has, in recent years, come to occupy such an important place in the international art scene. The curators seek to show how subjective narratives, experiences and interpretations in the work of contemporary Greek artists give shape to positions that reveal the totality of being. The words “Body”, “Soul” and “Place” signify basic parameters of artistic practice. The “Place” is associated with the artist’s cultural background, “Soul” with emotion and subjectivity, while the “Body” becomes a powerful vehicle for self-expression, especially in the context of the performative arts.
With an emphasis on material and texture, the exhibition covered a wide range of media and techniques: painting and sculpture and also video, drawing, engraving and photography. The common background for all is the wide range of the artists’ visual vocabulary indicative of both their own cultural background and their integration in the international artistic environment.