EMST OPEN
The National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST) is Open to the public. It is ready to welcome the audience with its permanent collection on view, its exhibitions and activities.
It took ten years after EMST first operated, in 2000, an adventurous route with the gradual activation of its temporary exhibition spaces and the suspension of its operation a year ago, so that the installation works of the permanent collection would start and the museum would become full operational. EMST, as a main institution for the creation and the promotion of the contemporary culture can now fulfil its important role.
Inaugurating a new era, the museum will have a free entrance for the audience from February 28th and during March.
EMST invited the audience to co-form its new era, in its permanent home, and turn it into the new favourite destination of the city.
In the exhibition of the permanent collection 172 works by 78 Greek and international artists are presented and are integrated into three axes: Memory References – Demands – Political narratives; Boundaries & Passages; and Heterotopias – Mythologies of the familiar – new perspectives.
At the Contemporary Exhibition Space (-1) the exhibition under the title “EMST Open, EMST as a storyline” presents the museum’s story since it first started operating. The exhibitions, the activities, the educational programs and the move of the museum from space to space defined the museum until its installation at its permanent home. The Timeline introduces again the museum’s past that formed its present. The next months the exhibition will be framed with parallel events.
At the Project Room of the museum the new video – installation In Vitro of the artists Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind will be presented, a film of 28’, which was the presentation of Denmark at the Venice Bienalle of 2019.
The pivotal moment for EMST in gaining the momentum to achieve full operation of the Museum was a €3,000,000 grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) in July 2018, which allowed it to complete essential works. SNF supported the museum in outfitting its exhibition spaces and in preparing and transporting its Permanent Collection for display. Moreover, equipment essential for the museum to operate to the fullest, procured with SNF support, contributed to the establishment and upgrade of spaces including the Media Lounge, the Conservation Laboratory, the Library and Artistic Archive, and the Screening Room.
Opening its doors to a new era EMST changed it visual identity. The new logo was designed by the company MNP, has as a main reference the characteristic parallelogram shape of the building that was first designed by the architect Takis Zenetos. The building’s form and its location contribute to a en emphatic projection of the horizontal axis. Through its visual simplicity it aims to describe a space, a frame that is not self-defined, but it is defined every time by the artworks of the artists that are enlivened in the museum.
The website of EMST is also redesigned and enriched with information about the artworks and the artists of the museum’s collection. The collection includes around 1.300 works, 965 at the Department of Painting and 3D works, 323 at the Photography and New Media Department and 8 at the Architectural and Industrial Design Department, of 151 Greek and 105 foreign artists.
The competition for the cafe and the restaurant of the museum is progress and these spaces is expected to be operating within March.
Source: EMST | NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, ATHENS » EMST OPEN