[MGSA-L] Private Art Foundation Funds Renovation of Conservatory in Athens

[June Samaras]

Private Art Foundation Funds Renovation of Conservatory in Athens

http://artforum.com/news/id=63525

Anny Shaw reports in the Art Newspaper that the Greek collector Dimitris
Daskalopoulos’s NEON Foundation—a nonprofit contemporary art organization
founded in 2013—has funded the refurbishment of the basement of the Athens
Conservatoire, one of the oldest foundations for music and drama education
in modern-day Greece, to provide about 5,905 square feet of new exhibition
space.

The space is due to open on September 24 with two projects organized by
NEON, after which programming will resume under the direction of the Athens
Conservatoire. The first will be a five-day residency program with forty
fellows, an iteration of the New Museum in New York’s initiative “Ideas
City” and titled “Ideas City Athens,” culminating in a public conference on
September 24 that will explore the future of cities. Scheduled speakers
include John Akomfrah, Tania Bruguera, and Hito Steyerl.

The second project will bring a touring group exhibition, “Flying Over the
Abyss,” to the city from November 16, 2016 through January 31, 2017. The
show—featuring such artists as Matthew Barney, Hans Bellmer, Jenny Holzer,
and Kostas Ioannidis—was previously presented at the Museum of Contemporary
Art of Crete and the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki.

The basement of the Athens Conservatoire’s historic building had previously
stood unused for the past four decades, “as a result of public abandonment
and national indifference,” according to Nikos Tsouchlos, the chairman of
the board of the Music and Drama Society at the Athens Conservatoire. The
original aim was to split the building into three wings for music, dance,
and theater, but funds ran out in 1976 and construction stopped after only
the first floor had been completed. There are currently plans to renovate
the rest of the building with funds from the European Union, according to a
spokeswoman for the project.

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June Samaras
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : june.samaras at gmail.com
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