NEON Organization for Culture and Development inaugurates its annual exhibition program this year, in the city of Rethymnon, with the exhibition "Flying over the Abyss", in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete. This large in scale and extent exhibition presents in Crete renowned contemporary artists, within NEON’s policy framework to bring contemporary culture closer to everybody throughout Greece.
The collaboration between NEON and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete has developed an exhibition which optimizes the island’s very important cultural asset, Nikos Kazantzakis-the thinker, thus creating a dialogue between his theosophical work Ascesis: The Saviors of God and the creations of Greek and international artists of contemporary art.
Afterwards, the exhibition will travel to Thessaloniki to be presented at the city’s Contemporary Art Centre and Ottoman monuments, conjointly. The exhibition will last from November, 2015 up until March of 2016.
The exhibition "Flying over the Abyss" brings about the adjoined curatorship of Maria Marangou, Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, and that of art historian, Dimitris Paleocrassas, exploring the passage of man from life to death, while observing, yet drawing its inspiration upon, Kazantzakis’ “Ascesis”. A synergy of NEON and the Kazantzakis Museum, the manuscript of Ascesis, exhibited for the first time, will be hosted at the exhibition, in an interacting process with contemporary art.
In their totality, 33 artworks, by 26 artists, will be on an ongoing dialogue amongst them, the Ascesis as well, casting light upon the course of human life – from the trauma of birth to the struggle of life and creativity, unto death. The works will be presented in seven thematic sections: Birth/Trauma, Flying over the Abyss, From Creativity to Eternity, Touching the Other, Twilight, Return to the Abyss.
The exhibition includes works from the following artists: Marina Abramović, Alexis Akrithakis, Matthew Barney, Hans Bellmer, Louise Bourgeois, Heidi Bucher, Paul Chan, Savvas Christodoulides, Robert Gober, Asta Gröting, Jim Hodges, Mike Kelley, William Kentridge, Martin Kippenberger, Sophia Kosmaoglou, Gabriel Kuri, Sherrie Levine, Stathis Logothetis, Ana Mendieta, Maro Michalakakos, Doris Salcedo, Costas Tsoclis, Adriana Varejão, Mark Wallinger.
All works exhibited are courtesy of the D.Daskalopoulos Collection.
Dimitris Daskalopoulos, founder of the NEON Organization, states: “The dialogue connecting Kazantzakis’ robust thought with the representatives of the visual art consciousness of our times, urges, individually, each one of us to redefine one’s role and responsibility towards the country, in need of our contribution in order to regain its future”.
As per Maria Marangou, Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, “Hand in hand with the manuscript of ‘Ascesis’, unraveled is the rending of other, revitalizing moments of the contemporary, artistic creation, as they suggest the transcendence over the abyss, reaching, nowadays, its limit with the fears as proclaimed au courant. The Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete receives, with the warmest feelings, the exhibition in its premises”.
The art historian, Dimitris Paleocrassas, points out: “In an inter-genealogical course, the great Cretan poet, Nikos Kazantzakis, ‘encounters’ 26 international and Greek contemporary artists. The link of this bridging course lays in the inter-temporal unease of the human entity, which constitutes a necessary prerequisite- people are born with the burden of their mortal nature on their shoulders, far off from perfection; a burden they struggle to outflank during the course of a lifetime. The only way a meaning could be ascribed to uplift this struggle is through the element of creativity, human deeds which could shine eternally. It could, also, create the illusion of escaping from one’s inevitable return to the abyss one comes from…”
According to Stelios Matzapetakis, President of the Kazantzakis Museum, “For us, the elation is great that this exquisite exhibition, thematically based on the paramount work of the Cretan author, is hosting works of renowned artists which grandstand for their scale and cultural value”.
Exhibition: Flying over the Abyss
Duration: 2 May – 27 September, 2015
Opening hours:
Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, 32 Mesologiou Street, Rethymnon
Tuesday – Friday: 09:00-14:00 & 19:00-21:00
Saturday & Sunday: 10:00-15:00
Monday: Closed
Mosque of Sultan Ibrahim Han, Fortezza, Rethymnon
Daily: 09:00 – 19:00