First production in the frame of the “Four Women Artists, Four Attitudes” series

Opening: Saturday 20 April 2024, 12:00

Quotes by Alex Mylona, a Pioneer of postwar Greek art, from publications, interviews and her own notes, along with her works from all periods of her creation compose her very personality in the new exhibition entitled “Alex Mylona –By Hand” which will be presented at the museum that bears her name, in Thisio, Athens, from 20 April to 09 June, 2024.

The experience of women’s emancipation, freedom of choice, independence, courage and perseverance in the face of all difficulties, enthusiasm and the persistent effort to achieve acceptance are the hallmarks of the life and work of sculptor Alex Mylona. Marble, metal, paper dominate as materials in the exhibition on the three flours of MOMus-Museum Alex Mylona, together with archival material. 

“They told me to write something about my work. I’ve never done this. But I have thought a great deal on that very dificullt subject we call art. I think it is of primary importance to be sincere with myself. To give generously to objects, the designs in colors and forms which my own personal aesthetic perceprion suggests in accord with my idionyncracy.”, Alex Mylona noted (November, 1956).

Landmark years for herseld were surely her sculpture studies under Michael Tombros at the School of Fine Arts in Athens, and 1960, when she was the only woman in the group of artists representing Greece at the 30th Venice Biennale, alongside Yiannis Spyropoulos, Alekos Kontopoulos, Lazaros Lameras and Efthymis Papadimitriou. 

Her artistic work is distinguished by some of her milestone works: the contemplative and introspective curves of Motherhood (1942), the solid, rocky Amazon (1953), the cruciform and tragic Cry of Medea and the rhythmic Berioshka-Russian Dance (both from 1957), the Birth of Aphrodite (1960) in wrought iron painted black, whose austere stillness, coarseness and sharp ends evoke an archaic symbol, the sculptural experimentations for the public space Propositions for Architecture (1976), the two strict, silent marble sculptures, Kouros and Kore (1997). 

She herself, always creative and active through the decades, was fortunate enough to see her dream come true, with the foundation of the Museum Alex Mylona in 2004, by uniting two houses – a neoclassical one from the 1920s and a sample of a 19th century rural house – in the Psirri area in Thisio, as a core of contemporary sculpture, research and the promotion of young artists. 

The exhibition is the first production by MOMus-Museum Alex Mylona in 2024 under the “Four Women Artists-Four Attitudes” series, which features women artists and curators. 

The exhibition is also aligned with the outdoor exhibition entitled “Alex Mylona | Fulfillment” in the frame of WOW Athens 2024, in the context of the collaboration between the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) and the National Gallery - Alexandros Soutsos Museum.

Curated by: Katerina Syroglou, Art Historian

*Caption: Alex Mylona in her studio, 1960. Photo. Makis Skiadaresis