creativelyannette

Thinking about Athens

Last September, I spent ten lovely days in Greece on my way home after a month teaching in India. A conference in Ioannina in the northwest drew me back to the original home of my maternal grandparents. Airplane and other schedules gave me a few days coming and going to ramble around Athens.

One of my destinations in Athens was the metro station in the central Syntagma Square. I’d never seen the archeology exhibits there and having just taught an intensive seminar dealing with exhibition development of archeological material in India, I wanted to see this “metro museum.”* (see 11-14-2024 post for the Jaipur Metro Art Gallery)

*As I prepared this entry, I referred to my friend Google and learned that other Athens metro stations house even more archeological exhibitions and significant art installations (https://www.greeknewsagenda.gr/arts-in-greece-exploring-the-athens-metro-greeces-underground-museum).

The Syntagma station is located in the center of Athens. Archeological exhibits include display cases filled with amphorae, clay oil lamps, and more antiquities excavated at this and other locations; an expansive in-situ archaeological cross-section is revealed in an entire wall. City walls, roads, and even the tomb of a 4th century BC skeleton have been left in place.

Several artworks are also part of the Syntagma Metro Museum. “Metro Clock,” by prominent Greek sculptor Thodoros Papadimitriou overlooks the main concourse of the station. I totally missed George Zongolopoulos’ spectacular Atrium which combines his trademark umbrellas with light, glass, and water.

Look at the blue square toward the bottom right

I was captivated, however, by the installation of more than 300 photos by painter Jannis Psychopedis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo3nQiaqYr0). Among the many portraits in this artwork, I recognized Vassilis Tsitsanis, one of the most noted and loved Greek musicians. “Cloudy Sunday” (Synefiasmeni Kyriaki), his best-known song, reflects the suffering of the Greeks during the German-Italian occupation of Greece in World War II (https://greeksongstories.wordpress.com/tag/cloudy-sunday/). This is on my must-see movie list, give it a try!

Vassilis Tsitsanis

Another visit to Athens is warranted to explore the other noted art underground exhibits in this ancient and modern city.

Unknown's avatar

Published by creativelyannette

Creatively Annette grew out of the anomy of the pandemic. It gave me an outlet to write about my own creativity – cooking, handcrafts, and more – as well as other topics, like observations out and about, near and far. I worked for many years in Museums, so I enjoy looking at and commenting about things museum as well as art, architecture and more. I have been fortunate to work in and with museums in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Florida as well as Bahrain, Greece, and Korea. My academic training is in folklore, traditional culture. This has shaped the museum practices that I’ve followed all these years. It’s about the people whose work I’m putting on display, not about me. I’ve now branched out and give various tours of Miami. So if you’re visiting, or you live here, and you want an inside to places you might never had imagined, reach out. We can arrange a tour.

2 comments

Leave a comment