2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture turns the city of Elefsina into a large art stage with five exhibitions and art installations with free admission: Mystery 44 Heiner Goebbels 7 Columns and Mystery 17 Melina, under the general supervision of Manuela Pavlidou and the general curation of Nikolaos Kaltsas, in the renovated Warehouses 2 & 3 respectively of the Old Oil Mill, Mystery 177 Visions from the Underworld, a group exhibition curated by Agprognostic Temple (Dome Wood & Sam Steverlynck) at X – Bowling Art Center, Inventory II by Vassilis Gerodimos and Tzeni Argyriou on the city’s coastal front, as well as Mystery 29 Elefsina – Raw Museum, the exhibition – ode to the city of Elefsina in the renovated Old Town Hall curated by Erato Koutsoudakis. Discover more about Elefsina here.
With great respect for its post-industrial history, its architecture, and its generous aesthetic, artist and composer Heiner Goebbels with Mystery 44 Heiner Goebbels 7 Columns transforms the spacious hall of the Old Oil Mill Factory (05.02—23.04), utilising the elements of light, projection, water, and sound to turn the space into a kind of Telesterion: a secular initiation hall, openly inviting the public to discover – without hierarchy – the eloquent surfaces of the stones, the surprising reflections on the walls and ceiling, and moving images in which a group of performers are seen (literally) pulling relics of European history out from the arsenal of the past. These performers are organised in a decentralised way. Their actions are based on agreements that remain unknown but clearly follow a logic of resonances between the bodies, the objects, and sound. The high degree of attention and care each pays the other is apparent. Together, they construct a landscape that simultaneously shows a world in the ruins of dominant narratives, and the poetic power of resistance to an existing order. Music is heard in which delicately composed sounds cannot be attributed to well-known instruments. And voices are heard – aural documents collected in Greece during the mid-20th century by Samuel Baud- Bovy, an ethnomusicologist and musician renowned worldwide for the erudition of his work. A carefully composed balance between the elements – between what is seen and what is heard – allows visitors to become sovereign observers. And attentive viewers might even discover the seventh column. Discover more about the exbition here.
Mystery 17 Melina (05.02—23.04), brings the multi-faceted persona of a brilliant actress, a resolute champion of democracy, and a tireless politician to life. It features original posters for famous films starring Melina Mercouri, photographs documenting her appearances at award ceremonies, her struggle against the Greek dictatorship, and her moments with loved ones, as well as film scenes, original costumes used in theatre productions still considered landmark works many decades later, her correspondence with prominent figures, and even her dressing room, complete with her personal effects. The exhibition showcases the life’s work of the longest-serving Greek Minister of Culture to date: the institutional support she secured for the Greek Film Centre, for the establishment of Municipal and Regional Theatres, and for educational programmes promoting culture in schools; the founding of the European Capital of Culture initiative, which is still going strong today; and her announcement of plans for an archaeological park that revived the dream of connecting Athens’ archaeological sites. And, above all else, her campaign for the repatriation of the Parthenon Sculptures; back in 1989, Melina Mercouri launched a new international competition for the design of the Acropolis Museum that is now a reality – a space ready to welcome the return of the Sculptures. Discover more about the exbition here.
Freely borrowing elements from the Eleusinian Mysteries, the group exhibition Visions from the Underworld (03.02—08.04), curated by The Agprognostic Temple (Dome Wood & Sam Steverlynck), takes the myth and the secret cult around it as a starting point and way of navigating between parallel universes. It seeks to show the Mysteries’ current-day relevance while opening them up to different voices in a language for the 21st century. The exhibition is set within an architectural construction of a hypercube that references the nearby archaeological site and positions itself between a ruin that could be situated millennia ago or in an indefinable post-apocalyptic future. Once inside, the visitor is invited to embark on a journey of discovery – a symbolic descent to the underworld and back. Throughout the ruins of this Temple, different artworks are dispersed, echoing some of the themes and motives from the Mysteries – the cycle of death and rebirth, fertility and mortality, initiation rites and rituals, hallucinations and visions – as well as a general penchant for the occult, obscure and psychedelic. Discover more about the exbition here.
As an echo of the emblematic procession, entitled the Eleusinian Movement, but also as a commemoration of their project Inventory I (2018), Vassilis Gerodimos and Jenny Argyriou curate the art exhibition-installation Inventory II (04.02—26.02), which is set up on the beachfront in three containers, with video-documents and creative quotation evidence. In modern history, Eleusis gathered many different populations, who migrated to this place to find work, while transferring customs and traditions. A human mosaic was thus created that constitutes an important part of the city’s modern identity. At the Official Opening Ceremony of the 2023 Eleusis Cultural Capital of Europe, on February 4, 2023, these different communities of Elefsina will cross like rivers through the urban fabric of the city to join in a big dance that flows into the port. This procession, entitled the Eleusinian Movement, symbolically represents the participation of the citizens of Eleusis in the Opening Ceremony, in order to welcome visitors to the city. As an echo of this iconic procession, but also as a commemoration of the Reserves project (2018), by the same artists and always in the context of 2023 Eleusis, an art exhibition-installation inside three containers will be set up on the beach front, with video-documents and creative citation of evidence. The aim is to highlight once again the strong imprint of the labor movement in Eleusis. Discover more about the exbition here.
Following its first successful presentation at the Benaki Museum / 138 Pireos Str., with more than 5,000 visitors, the emblematic Exhibition Mystery 29 Elefsina – Raw Museum, showcasing the mysteries and uniqueness of Elefsina, is hosted in the title city till 26th March. Mystery_29 Elefsina. Raw Museum, curated by architect-museologist Erato Koutsoudaki,attempts to interpret the city as an Exhibit, and invites the audience to a journey to the core of its existence; from antiquity to modern times, through tradition and domestic exile and internal migration, displacement, industrial growth, the long-suffering labor realities, the city’s relationship with the arts and Aeschylus, whose birthplace it is, the people and the communities that comprise it. Photographic documents by Greek and international artists, lithographs, rare collectors’ exhibits, as well as a narrative documentary of talking portraits comprise a rare journey into the visible and invisible Elefsina.Discover more about the exbition here.
