The exhibition under the title Transcultures, with which the National Museum of Contemporary Art participates in the Cultural Olympiad 2001-2004, has been conceived, from the very beginning, as a collection project as well. The idea was to address a considerable number of international artists originating equally from metropolitan centers and peripheries, and through commissions of artworks especially for the exhibition enrich the permanent collections of the newly established museum.
In the exhibition, which is developed on three levels of the new wing of the Athens Concert Hall, 17 internationally acknowledged artists participate : Miroslaw Balka, Costas Varotsos, Katharina Fritsch, Kendell Geers, Mona Hatoum, Gary Hill, Emily Jacir, Jannis Kounellis, Wolfgang Laib, Shirin Neshat, Walid Ra’ad and The Atlas Group, Kimsooja, Danae Stratou, Do-Ho Suh, Costas Tsoclis, Bill Viola and George Hadjimichalis.
As a creative stimulus the thesis was formulated, that the intersection of cultures constitutes the necessary condition both for the production as well as the reception of contemporary art. Through an extended nomadic experience, contemporary artists and spectators transcend national delimitations and closed identities in order to open themselves up and open a global communication among different peoples, individuals and societies.
In front of this transcultural mobility, museums could not remain indifferent. They are today asked to redetermine their strategies and programs in a perspective of approaching and knowing the Other, of the critical convergence of the local with the global.
From this point of view, Transcultures remains an open project…
Excerpt from the official catalogue