MONTH IN REVIEW: November 2025
A roundup of this past month’s art and design news about the makers and creators from Greece and Cyprus
By: Sophia
Onassis Foundation Welcomed New Spaces for Artists
The Onassis Foundation expands in two major locations: Athens and New York.
In Athens, Onassis Ready opened its doors last month in a former plastic bottle factory. The repurposed factory is now a studio and performance space for contemporary artists complete with resources for them to relish in the pleasure of art-making. Juerger Teller’s “you are invited” is the inaugural show on display through December.
Onassis ONX, the Foundation’s experimental art and technology studio in New York opens in an expansive space in Tribeca this upcoming January. Since 2020, Onassis ONX has been home to artists working in virtual reality and artificial intelligence mediums. The announcement of the expansion is celebrated with the exhibit “TECHNE: Homecoming,” which features new multidisciplinary works from Andrew Thomas Huang, Tamiko Thiel, and Sister Sylvester.
The foundation’s artistic director, Afroditi Panagiotakou, said, “The Onassis Foundation continues to invest in the infrastructures of imagination, connecting Athens and New York through creativity and technological inquiry. We offer artists the time, resources, and, most importantly, the freedom to choose when to use—and when not to use—advanced technologies to best serve their artistic vision.”
Contemporary Design Celebrated in Bicommunal Exhibit in Cyprus
The Fashion Heritage Network Cyprus (FHNC) hosted a three-day exhibit this month showcasing artisanal techniques and traditional crafts. The premise of the exhibit paired a cohort of young artists with master artisans across Cyprus to learn such crafts as land-loom weaving, Lefkara and Lapithos embroidery, and basketry. The FHNC recognizes the critical importance of preserving these crafts as part of Cypriot cultural identity, sustainability, and pathways to innovative contemporary design.
In addition to this exhibit, the fashion network announced its new independent publication and multidisciplinary magazine Defteri. Through essays, interviews, and visual storytelling, the magazine helps support the vision of sharing and preserving cultural memory and encouraging a sustainable future.
Left: Work by Lucas Samaras in the exhibition Eight Artists, Eight Attitudes, Eight Greeks, ICA London; Right: Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Volcano Series No. 2), 1979 | Part of the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift | EMST Collection
The National Museum of Contemporary Art Opened Two Exhibitions
This month, the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens welcomed two exhibitions as part of its autumn programming. The showings touch on landscape, history, and temporal innovations.
One exhibit, entitled "The Greek Month in London 1975, 50 Years On," revisits the critical moment in Greek history and discusses post-dictatorship as a means of practicing communal remembrance and resistance to the fading past. It re-examines the 1975 London presentation “Greek Month,” which aimed to reintroduce Greek art to the global stage, directly informed by Greece’s new hope for restored democracy. This new exhibit served as a collective moment to return to the past and consider its reverberations in the current contemporary Mediterranean art landscape.
”Sea Garden,” another exhibit in the program, features new curatorial voices. It includes self-portraits, earth-body interaction, ecological film from the island of Karpathos, research from the dry garden of Sparoza in Attica, and organism sculpture. As the title suggests, much like the land meeting the sea, these art objects weave in and out of each other, creating a living discourse.
Dwell Featured Home of Athens Architect Sofia Xanthakou
This month, Dwell published a feature of the home of Athens Architect, Sofia Xanthakou, founder of Local Local architecture firm. She and her young family decided to return to their roots in Greece after spending several years abroad. This time, finding themselves in the arms of Athens’ oldest neighborhood, Plaka, finding a quiet sliver in Greece’s bustling capital.
With a process focused on restoration and preservation, Sofia took the late 19th-century home into a revived splendor. It features a bright, open minimalist design with welcome pops of vivid color, using Greek materials at every turn. In collaboration with her husband, Andreas, an art dealer and gallery owner, Xanthakou created a living space adorned with hanging artworks. The main floor is grounded by a custom statement-making red terrazzo flooring, an iconic Athenian material.
VIMA Art Fair Announced Dates and Details for 2026 Programming
The VIMA art fair will host its next festival between May 15 and 17 at The Warehouse by IT Quarter in Limassol. Its purpose will remain to create a platform for art in the Eastern Mediterranean and contribute to the growth of contemporary art structures in Cyprus.
London-based curator Kostas Stasinopoulos is at the helm of the 2026 program, and he is planning a central exhibit featuring more than 30 galleries from across the globe including from Nicosia, Paris, New York, London, and Istanbul. Stasinopoulos plans to assemble a diverse roster of live events, including film screenings, performances, and talk-backs to foster continued cultural exchange and deepen international relationships.
VIMA also announced the creation of VIMA CIRCLE, a new community experience with the goal of strengthening ties across the Mediterranean and shaping the future of art.
The Museum of Cycladic Art Announced New Jeff Koons Exhibit
Jeff Koons: ‘Venus’ Lespugue, — opening at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens from March 19 until August 31 — marks the first public display of Balloon Venus Lespugue (Orange) (2013-2019) by Jeff Koons. The sculpture explores the significance of the Venus figure from the Paleolithic period to the present day. Alongside a series of ten replicas of Venus figurines from the Upper Paleolithic era, the exhibition asks how the universal archetype of fertility has transcended across time and place. Koons’ version revisits this prehistoric visual language through a radically different medium and context: the industrial, hyper-material world of the 21st century.
Koons’ work examines how ancient forms of reverence are echoed in today’s fascination with form, surface, desire, and artifice. Through the polished surface of Koons’ Balloon Venus Lespugue (Orange), viewers can explore how material transformation alters or preserves symbolic meaning, and how contemporary art might help viewers reconnect to ancient aspects of human experience.
Event in Thessaloniki Shed Light on Systematic Destruction of Cypriot Heritage
This year marked 51 years since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. In honor of this moment, the Philoptochos Brotherhood of Men of Thessaloniki held an event entitled “The Systematic Looting of Cyprus’ Cultural Heritage in the Occupied Territories: A Half-Century Assessment,” which highlighted the systematic looting and destruction of Cyprus’ cultural heritage. Dr. Charalampos Hotzakoglou was the keynote speaker for the event, and unveiled research, personal testimonies, and photographic evidence that documented the destruction of churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and other monuments in the occupied areas of Cyprus since 1974. He recounted personal experiences when he was detained by Turkish soldiers while he was photographing frescoes in Famagusta following the opening of the Nicosia checkpoints in 2023.
Dr. Hotzakoglou’s research detailed a myriad of other looting cases, destruction, and demolition of historic sites, as well as the international efforts committed to recovering and repatriating items lost from this time. This research and event are a materialization of scholars' intention to educate younger generations about the importance of preserving language, faith, and culture in the face of political trauma and historical amnesia.
