Marina Nikolova
They say that people during severe social and economic crises make a reassessment of their value system. Whether a person will fly on the wings of desire or will he turn for questions on existential issues to the art and literature it is a matter of personal choice. But the good thing is that there are still places and people who can offer a breath of fresh air from the busy everyday life. In such an urban oasis these days will be turned the closed course for taekwondo in the district of Faliro, where there is held the three-days Exhibition Art Athens.
Art Athens is a market for works of art where galleries will be presented from all around the world and they show their artists. The exhibition is held for the 16th consecutive time in the Greek capital and despite the economic crisis, between 13 and 16 May 58 galleries from Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Germany, USA, Italy, Cyprus, Great Britain, Netherlands and Turkey will participate with the paintings, sculptures and installations of more than 300 artists. Furthermore, at the exhibition are presented also 42 organizations dealing with contemporary art - museums, foundations, publishers and media.
"I will not give long speeches, but I will leave the works to speak for themselves," said at a press conference the director of the exhibition Art Athens Alexandros Stanas who also announced the parallel exhibition this year for "Books of Greek artists: Contemporary works of art" arranged under the curatorial directions of Maria Angely. At the exhibition are presented books of artists who seized with an obsessive idea, a secret or a code represent a description, a comment and ultimately reveal the metamorphosis of the elements of some project of theirs.
Among the foundations that are presented is also the foundation “Yannis and Zoe Spiropulos”, which this year gave its award for young artists up to the age of 30 during the official opening of the exhibition. Georgios Karayorgos won the first prize and the second prize was awarded to Maria Brigitta Karandzi. This year was awarded for the first time also the prize "Vassilis Valambus" to Yiannis Papadopoulos, which will be given to young artists up to the age of 35 years who are taking a masters degree.
"This year we present mostly young artists aged between 30 and 55 years. Their works are in various styles of contemporary art and we want to show the different trends," says Harrisa Dimitrakopoulou from the Astrolavos Gallery which exists from 1986.
"In the beginning we started to collaborate with artists who have left their mark on Greek art. With us was held the last exhibition of Yannis Tsaruhis, the last of Hadzikiriakos-Gikas, we have made exhibitions with art works of Spiropoulos, of Engonopoulos and later we started to work with young artists who are talented. We stopped being influenced by which generation they belong to, in what style they are painting and what are the trends. Is important for us to present artists who we believe have value regardless of age."
Ms. Dimitrakopoulou says that during the last twenty years many changes have occurred on the market of art both on the part of the collectors and on the part of the artists. "Every age has its own style that can attract collectors ... In the '80s one could easily buy a piece of work of Tsaruhis or Moralis. In the '90s the prices went up because of rising of the stock and because of the economic growth, which lead to the shrinking of the clientele and to its limiting to people of high social and economic status. Perhaps now it would be further limited, so far we have not yet seen the results of the economic crisis we are still just talking about it, but later we will it feel more real" adds the owner of the Astrolavos gallery.
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