ART-REVIEW:Flying Over the Abyss

Τhe truth is that as many exhibitions one spectates, the more strictly are his criteria. Having just returned from Paris, were the city was full of exhibitions, with FIAC 2016 at the forefront, but also with a series of exhibitions in the major Museums and Galleries, I saw some exhibition in Athens and I tried to convince myself that you do not need to compare different things, the benchmarks are different, the media, the financial and social crisis, the spaces… But the above are the cast-iron excuses of a professional with good intentions. At the Press Preview of the exhibition “Flying over the Abyss”, organized by the Cultural Organization NEON at the Athens Conservatoire, confirmed once again my belief that despite all the institutional and economic difficulties, Athens has entered the orbit of contemporary art metropolises before 15 years. “Flying over the Abyss” is one of the best exhibitions that I saw recently, the most integrated at the level of curating and setup. The reason for this is that the exhibition is curated jointly by two persons with vast experience: Dimitrios Paleocrassas (Art Historian-Curator) and Maria Marangou (Artistic Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Crete) and the choice of the works from the D. Daskalopoulos Collection & Nikos Kazantzakis Museum. The dialogue that is created both between the works in each room that is referred in a different part of the Abyss, and the space of Athens Conservatoire is ideal. “Flying over the Abyss” is a very well-structured exhibition that deals with primordial subjects rendered in a contemporary visual discourse, alive and strict. The desire for someone is to visit again and again the exhibition is insatiable, since each time he is discovering new elements, spectates the artworks in a new way and discovers the extensions that has over time a now classic book, a series of “spiritual exercises” written by Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis, through Contemporary Art.- Efi Michalarou