Just like every May, this year's top cultural event, the Athens Street Food Festival is returning to Athens!

For nine days (May 10-11-12, May 17-18-19 and May 24-25-26) the Old Depot of OSY in Gazi will become the meeting point for foodies, families, friends, tourists, and all those who wish to taste new street flavors from every corner of the world.

Athens Street Food Festival started back in 2016 with the aim of making the Athenian public aware of street food culture. The public's reaction was so overwhelming that the concept of "street food" rapidly spread to become the ultimate gastronomic trend in the country!

With more than 250,000 visitors in total, Athens Street Food Festival is the largest food festival in Greece, a real institution for the gastronomy of the country. 

In this year's fourth edition, the "recipe" remains the same with love for food, careful selection of participants from all over Greece, new ideas and a wide variety of flavors.

On January 7, the curtain is drawn on this year’s SNFCC Christmas World with a vibrant event marking a hopeful attitude for the new year ahead. At the heart of the SNFCC, the Agora, the King of Rock & Roll comes to life for one night only, and everyone is invited to join in this open party. 

No other pop culture persona has been as timelessly fascinating and as captivatingly charming as Elvis Presley — case in point: there are currently approximately 100,000 official impersonators of him in the US alone.

During his lifetime, Elvis stirred up teenage consciences, overturned social norms and shot down musical conventions. At the same time, he turned himself into a unique embodiment of the American Dream: he was innovative and, at the same time, inordinate in absolutely everything he did. And this is the reason why one generation of music lovers after another keeps on discovering his musical legacy with the same warmth and longing.

SNFCC’s tribute to Elvis Presley brings together musicians from the three most “thoroughbred” Athenian rock & roll bands, D.K. & The Band, Jitterbugs and HiRollers, in a delightful evening covering Elvis’s entire discography, from “That’s All Right” and “Mystery Train” to “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Blue Suede Shoes,” and from “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock” to “It’s Now Οr Never,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Suspicious Minds.” 

Every Friday, the Restaurant on the second floor is open until 12 midnight offering special gourmet choices and beautiful night views of the Acropolis. The Restaurant renews its menu with seasonal dishes, using the finest products from every region of Greece, prepared in traditional methods.

Other than the special dishes based on traditional recipes, every Friday night the Acropolis Museum restaurant presents famous jazz music ensembles (musicians include Spyros Rontogiannis, George Tsiropoulos, George Mikros, Arionas Gyftakis and Christos Koromilas). Like every Friday, the restaurant is open until 12 midnight, offering a dinner menu from 8 p.m. onwards. 

For reservations, please contact the restaurant during Museum opening hours on +30 210 9000915. Visitors not wishing to dine at the restaurant are welcomed for a cold dish or dessert in a special restaurant area without reservation.

The Acropolis Museum started in 2015 a series of temporary exhibitions displaying important ancient artifacts, deriving from significant archaeological sites of the Greek periphery. The Museum’s goal is to present unusual subjects that will intrigue the current visitor and at the same time urge him to visit the places the exhibits originated from.The Acropolis Museum started in 2015 a series of temporary exhibitions displaying important ancient artifacts, deriving from significant archaeological sites of the Greek periphery.

The Museum’s goal is to present unusual subjects that will intrigue the current visitor and at the same time urge him to visit the places the exhibits originated from.

After “Samothrace. The mysteries of the great gods” and “Dodona. The oracle of sounds”, the third exhibition of the series concerns Eleusis and the great mysteries. Eleusis (Greek: Elefsina) is a town and municipality in West Attica, Greece. It is situated about 18 kilometres (11 miles) northwest from the centre of Athens. It is located in the Thriasian Plain, at the northernmost end of the Saronic Gulf.

The exhibition presents the most important artifacts brought to light by the archaeological excavation in Eleusis, such as the unique statue of the “Fleeing Persephone” (around 480 BC), the votive relief depicting Demeter and Kore (Persephone)(470-450 BC) and ceremonial vessels, such as kernos, plemochoe and thymiaterion, as well as monuments depicting the leading figures of the great mysteries, Hierophant and Dadouchos.

The exhibition includes archaeological findings from the Athenian Eleusinion and the Sacred Way, as the religious procession started from Athens with a host of Initiates and candidates for initiation and ended up in the Eleusis Telesterion. For this reason, a votive relief from the area of Eleusinion and distinctive findings from the Sanctuary of Aphrodite, which is located next to the Sacred Way at the area of Daphne, are on display before the entrance to the exhibition.

The exhibition gallery has the form of the Eleusinian Telesterion including a small-scale version of the dark Anaktoron where visitors can watch a 15-minute video presentation with aerial photographs of the Sacred Way, representations, models, the archaeological site of Eleusis and many emblematic exhibits.

The exhibition is conducted with the collaboration of the Acropolis Museum and the Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attica. The exhibits are on a loan from the Archaeological Museum of Eleusis and the National Archaeological Museum.

A total of 93 free-entry events in 115 archaeological sites, monuments and museums all over the country are organized by the Ministry of Culture and Sports for the full moon of August, which this year takes place on the 7^th of August!

In addition, 22 venues and museums will remain open to the public without  specific events being held. 

At the Central Archaeological Council meeting, all members  gave the "green light" for events that include music, dance, theater and visual exhibitions as film screenings, poetry nights, guided tours and many other actions.

Last year's statistics showed that 63,795 people participated in 82 events  that were held in 116 archaeological sites, museums and monuments or visited  34 sites that were just open to the public.

This year's events will culminate on August 7^th, but there will be more around this date. As for Athens and Attica, that evening the Acropolis will remain open until 8 pm and Sounio until midnight.

Musical events will be held, among other things, in the archaeological site of Olympiou, with the Philharmonic of the Army General Staff (20.00-22.00), as well as in the adjacent area of ​​the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus ("Melodies in the Full Moon" with the soprano Vasia Zacharopoulou, Dimitris Paksoglou and The Underground Youth Orchestra, at 21.00).

The Acropolis Museum will celebrate the August full moon on two separate nights. On Thursday August 18 at 9 pm, the museum will host the well-known band The Swingin’ Cats.

Furthermore, the museum galleries will remain open from 8:00 am to midnight (entrance will be free after 8:00 pm), allowing visitors to look through the permanent and temporary exhibitions. At the same time, the restaurant, located on the museum’s second floor, will also be open to the public. Visitors will be able to taste exquisite dishes based on traditional recipes, while listening to jazz music.

Acropolis Museum – Free entry to museum from 8:00pm – 12:00am

The Acropolis Museum invites its visitors to a musical performance by the well-known musician and singer Manolis Mitsias and his band who will perform popular melodies by Greek songwriters and composers including, Manos Hadjidakis, Mikis Theodorakis, Stavros Xarchakos, Thanos Mikroutsikos, Loukianos Kilaidonis, Christos Leontis and Dimos Moutsis. Performance from 9:00pm. Museum opens 8:00am.

National Archaeological Museum – open until midnight

A musical performance in the garden of the museum, 9:30pm – 11:00pm.

Numismatic Museum

A musical performance by quartet – “Quarderinas Moonlight Stories”, 9:00pm – 12:00am.

Source: WhyAthens.com

11 European partners with the same goal: to support up-and-coming media artists in order to create new works.

The OCC continues to support artistic practices positioned between art, science and technology through its participation, along with ten other partners, in The European Media Art Platform - EMAP which provides up-and-coming media artists working in the visual arts, design, film, music and sound with the chance to participate in residencies and to create new works to be presented at festivals and other events in partner-countries.

The platform's members are: Werkleitz Centre for Media Art (Germany), Onassis Cultural Centre (Greece), Ars Electronica Center (Austria), Bandits Mages (France), Foundation for Art & Creative Technology / FACT (UK), IMPAKT (Netherlands), Kontejner (Croatia), LaBoral Centro de Arte y Creación Indstrial (Spain), M-Cult (Finland), RIXC (Lithuania), WRO Center for Media Art Foundation (Poland)

The National Archaeological Museum in collaboration with the Italian Archaeological School at Athens organize the temporary exhibition "Hadrian and Athens. Conversing with an Ideal World" in the Gallery 31a of the Sculpture Collection. The exhibition marks the 1900 years since the beginning of Adrian's Principate in AD 117, an anniversary that was celebrated in manifold ways by major European museums and cultural institutions.

The Athenian Kosmetai gallery in the permanent exhibition of the Sculpture Collection was selected as the ideal setting for the development of the museological concept. Portraits of the Emperor Hadrian are on display centrally in an imaginary philosophical dialogue about Greek culture with emblematic figures of intellectuals such as Metrodorus, Antonius Polemon and Herodes Atticus. Portraits of Plato and Aristoteles, standing as symbols of Greek philosophical thought, observe the imagined conservation, along with the Kosmetai at the back of the hall, i.e. the officials who were responsible for the intellectual and physical education of the ephebes in the Athenian gymnasia of the imperial period. Through this enriched exhibition narrative, the guardians of the traditional education (paideia) of ancient Athens are approached with new interpretative media that highlight the deep spiritual affinity between Hellenic and Roman culture.

The world of the Athenian Gymnasia is also enlivened by a series of representative exhibits and the splendid bust of Antinous, the emperor's beloved companion, who was deified after his premature death and venerated in the Gymnasia as a model of youthful beauty and vigour.

Opening Hours: Monday 13:00-20:00, Tuesday-Sunday 09:00-16:00

On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Bank of Greece, the Centre for Culture, Research and Documentation of the Bank presents an exhibition of 160 artworks by notable Greek artists, selected from its Collection. The Bank’s Collection comprises nearly 3,000 pieces, mostly figurative paintings and prints (in addition to a small number of sculptures) from the mid-19th century to this day, which highlight various aspects of modern Greek art.

On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Bank of Greece, the Centre for Culture, Research and Documentation of the Bank presents an exhibition of 160 artworks by notable Greek artists, selected from its Collection. The Bank’s Collection comprises nearly 3,000 pieces, mostly figurative paintings and prints (in addition to a small number of sculptures) from the mid-19th century to this day, which highlight various aspects of modern Greek art.Structured around the main themes that have been and, to this day, remain sources of inspiration for lasting ideas in modern Greek art, the exhibition unfolds along three broad narrative lines: antiquity, everyday life and the landscape, all central axes in modern Greek art.

A common thread through this exhibition is the Greek artists’ long-lasting interest in these themes, which have served as frames of reference for their creative expression, the development of their personal artistic idiom and – often –  the highlighting of the notion of ‘Greekness’.

The works on display lend themselves to multi-layered readings, fruitful comparisons and interpretationsof the ways each theme has advanced changing intentions and objectives – artistic, ideological, social – bringing forward respective ideas to Greek society during each era. In this light, the Collection itself can be approached as a ‘frame of reference’ for a body of artworks that attempts to unveil and, over time, articulate various facets of Greek cultural identity.


OPENING HOURS:
Thursday & Sunday, 10:00 -18:00 
Friday & Satuday 10:00 - 22:00

The relation of ancient Greeks with technology was studied systematically only in the last decades, and it proved that besides achievements in art, philosophy and literature, ancient Greeks were exceptional in technology, as well.

The exhibition’s main thematic axe develops around “human activities”, focusing on man as body and intellect, as creator and user, as thinker, religious and social being, as measure of all things -as criterion and means of comparison.

The exhibition’s objects are life-size or scale models, reconstructed after the descriptions by ancient Greek authors and Arab translations; with the exception of architecture, ancient Greek technology constructions or tools could not be preserved for posterity as they were made of perishable or recyclable materials.

It should be underlined that many -if not all- of the technical achievements of ancient Greeks remained intact to our time, at least at their basic concept.

The Ancient Greek Technology exhibition is an effort to record, study and present the huge treasure of technical knowledge, which has been accumulated through centuries of continuous prosperity and development, in ancient Greece.

It concerns knowledge, which totally changed man’s life in all fields: from food production and consumption, clothing and conditions of living, to science and culture. Sometimes, it concerns knowledge which is now remembered by very few people as originating from that historic period (such as the automata, the steam-generator, etc.).

This Technology, so decisive for the ensuing progress of the world, is presented within the Ancient Greek Technology Exhibition. It is an interesting attempt, since Technology is part of the foundations of all aspects of civilization. Art, techniques, legends, political theories, fundamental philosophical queries and countless other aspects of the human spirit.

Days & Hours:

The exhibition is curated by the art historian and assistant professor at the University of Athens Κonstantinos Vafiadis.

Dimitris Lazarou has the responsibility for the concept,organization and communication of the exhibition.

69 contemporary visual artists present art works of painting,sculpture and photography, inspired by the words of the Frenchpoet Paul Verlaine: "Art is to be absolutely yourself".

Paul Verlaine is characterized as a purely lyric poet who hasmarked a transition from romance to the symbolism movement,and is distinguished by the musical effect of his writing, throughthe use of several secrets of French procreation, such asappearances, assertions and imparisyllabic lyrics.

Art historian and Assistant Professor at the University of AthensKonstantinos Vafiadis in his text, titled "Commentary on PaulVerlaine's Exclusion: Art is to Be Absolutely Yourself"; notes: “Consequently the aphorism of the lyric poet Paul Verlaine (1844 –1896) “Art is to be absolutely yourself, seems to adopt a view ofthe same aspect. Nevertheless it reveals ambiguity as it refers totwo ancient notions, concerning Representation, absolutely notcompatible to each other.

According to the first notion Art is considered to be realized tomatter, reference to the Self as a materialistic projection to theexteriority of a nonvisible essence, and thus as a way out (exit)from the walls of an individual consciousness.In that case the artistic work constitutes a symbolic parallel to theself having a reference relationship, a point without objective butrelevant substance.

According to the second – more ancient – notion. Art is the Self inan absolute Sense. In that case the artistic work constitutes apresence, it doesn’t refer to the Self. It is the Self. Thus the artisticwork sheds the arbitrary character that is innate in the relationshipbetween phonetics and the meaning and at the same time itestablishes itself as objective.

Having all these in mind and within the frame of Paul Verlaine’ssymbolic thought the latter seems to support the second notion ofthe artistic representation as a testimony of the art work. Itproceeds even further by equating the art work with the self orrather by substituting and converting the self into the ultimatepiece of Art fully independent from the recent manipulatingcollectiveness.

In that sense the french poet seems to prepare the path that wasdestined to lead to the “Death of the Art” and later on to thepostmodern Situation, innate to the variations of Conceptual Art –not only to the manipulation of the artistic produce by the “Worldof Art” since the latter doesn’t do anything else but continuouslydirect the dominant World of power.”

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Friday: 14:00 - 20:00Saturday: 11:00 - 15:00

*Due to the Easter holiday period the gallery will be closed from 5 th tillDue to the Easter holiday period the gallery will be closed from 5 th till11 th of April.