Akrithakis, Caniaris, Fassianos, Gaitis, Kessanlis, Pavlos, Philolaos, Prassinos, Takis, Tsingos, Tsoclis, Xenakis

The exhibition is part of a series of annual shows featuring representative artists of the post-war period in Greece.

The social and economic changes that took place during the first decades after World War II transformed the world and as expected, created a series of cultural upheavals. The artists conversed dynamically with their times creating works with a uniquely individual character and a new, vibrant artistic vocabulary evolved. The difficult economic conditions in Greece, coupled with the adverse political climate, led many artists to leave the country and settle in major European cultural capitals. Cities such as Rome, Paris and later, Berlin, became centers of dynamic cultural production by Greek artists, who absorbed in creative and singular ways the major artistic movements of the time.

For some artists, such as Kessanlis and Caniaris, Rome was the closest destination and became the intermediate stop on their way to Paris, whereas for the majority of Greek artists - Fassianos, Pavlos, Tsingos, Gaitis, Takis, Philolaos, Prassinos, Xenakis and others - Paris was not only the first stop but the place where they stayed for a lengthy period of time and established their artistic careers. Berlin emerged as an important cultural center during the Cold War and artists such as Akrithakis and Caniaris went to the divided German city with DAAD scholarships where they became established as pioneering figures of Modernism.

The expressive strength of all the works in the exhibition confirms that the post-war period was especially creative for Greek artists. The works are typical examples of the uniqueness of the period which is characterized by experimentation with various media, the final rupture with the past, the overthrow of academic art and especially the break up of the boundaries between the object and its representation, between reality and artistic interpretation.