A decade ago, the vibe in Athens was very different. Greece’s economy was in tatters. Not long after, the country was dealing with the worst refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. So the last thing you’d have imagined is that, in 2017, Athens would be the first city to co-host Documenta, a German contemporary art extravaganza held every five years. That’s exactly what happened, though — and with record attendances.
The blossoming began just as the Athenian art market collapsed. After the initial shock, Greek artists realised there would be no quick fix and simply gave up trying to do anything commercial. Liberated and free to create what they wanted, they began to make critical, political, urgent work that was much more interesting, asking the same sort of existential questions Socrates posed in Athens 2,500 years ago.
“About 2012, there was a huge shift in Athens,” says Maria Lalou, a performance and installation artist. “Suddenly the underground scene became the scene.” This was the year when the Athenian artist Augustus Veinoglou founded Snehta (Athens spelt backwards), the city’s first residency for artists. It’s been so successful that Veinoglou is adding a printing works.
A number of Snehta artists have stayed in the city, joining the growing number who have made Athens their home. Its creative edginess and anarchic energy, empty industrial spaces and cheap rents inevitably bring up comparisons with Berlin in the 1990s — although Athens, everyone is quick to point out, has more sun, a warmer community spirit and a superior quality of life, in spite of everything. After all, it’s only half an hour to the beach.
Austerity was never an issue for the art foundations run by Greece’s shipping dynasties, which have held a prominent place in the city in the past few years. Shows by leading international and Greek artists, as well as theatre, dance and music, have featured since 2010 at the minimalist glass Onassis Cultural Centre, all at affordable prices. Renzo Piano’s stunning £530m Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, the new home of the national opera and national library, has been nominated for the 2018 Riba International Prize.
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In 2013, another wealthy benefactor, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, founded Neon to support artists and place their work in public spaces. And, after a lost decade of management chaos, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, in the former Fix brewery, will finally open all its spaces in 2018. It will house more than 1,000 works by Greek artists and international heavyweights such as Bill Viola.
The English-language website currentathens.gr brims with listings of private galleries in the Kolonaki and Kypseli neighbourhoods, and in the newly hip former industrial areas of Gazi and Metaxourgeio. The latter remains a little sketchy — brothels mix with contemporary galleries such as Rebecca Camhi and the Breeder.
The city’s new do-it-yourself spirit has led many artists to open their own spaces. In addition to Snehta, there’s the 3 137 studio, set up by three Greek artists, and the British-run Hot Wheels Projects. “Greek artists are taking more control of their work — I see a lot of independent shows in strange places such as garages,” said Pantelis Makkas, whose performance/video work will feature in this year’s Athens Festival, in June (greekfestival.gr).
“In most cities, contemporary art attracts a certain type of person,” Maria Lalou says. “But Athens is different. Here, everyone goes.”