The Museum of Modern Greek Culture organizes at the Bath House of the Winds, an Ottoman monument and a space of cultural convergence that encompasses memories and senses of centuries, the exhibition «Istanbul Diaries» with paintings by Irene Vogiatzi.
The paintings of Vogiatzi, who herself descends from Istanbul, function as a kind of diary, as an old family photo album, using as reference points the music and lyrics of the songs of Istanbul. The important moments of life, its protagonists, the loved ones, the familiar and the everyday, the landmarks, Istanbul itself, are attributed to paintings, starting each and every time from the different stories narrating the songs.
The family moments and the narratives which nurtured the artist in Xanthi, became a rare illustrative legacy, a source of inspiration for the painter. However, the works do not simply transcribe these stories into images but they create a self-contained, independent artistic world, strictly personal and at the same time absolutely collective, in the sense that in each of the introverted images of Vogiatzi the viewer can recognize his/her own personal history.
Every work, beyond its artistic rendering, is accompanied by the full record of a family narrative or a rewriting of that narrative from memory, which are imprinted in a bilingual album, designed by Kostas Fisser.
Curation: Iris Kritikou, Art historian
Exhibition opening: Saturday 14 December, 12:00
Duration of the Exhibition: 14.12.2019 – 03.02.2020
Place: Bath House of the Winds
Opening hours: Daily: 9:00-16:00, closed on Tuesdays
Information: 210 3244340
In the framework of the exhibition, on Sunday 22 December 2019 at 12:00, a tour of the exhibition will take place as well as a musical event with the musicians: Theodora Athanasiou (lute), Glafkos Samarianakis (violin) and Pantelis Karasevdas (percussion), with songs that have been a source of inspiration for the artist.
