May’s picks – best exhibitions in Athens

Published on: 30/04/2026

Across a series of exhibitions in Athens this month, the idea of home is taken apart and put back together in different ways. What feels familiar – domestic spaces, private interiors, everyday environments – keeps shifting, blurring the line between where things belong and where they start to slip out of place.
Taken together, these exhibitions offer a portrait of instability that feels very present right now: homes that are no longer quite stable, and spaces that are constantly being rewritten as you move through them.
Enjoy this round of exhibitions in Athens, and if you’d like to experience them more closely, feel free to reach out for a guided tour with our team.
See you in the city.

Shani Werner & the ATHENS ART TOURS Team

‘Ongoing’, Tilda Swinton retrospective at the Onassis Foundation
Positioned between exhibition, collaboration, and self-portrait, *Ongoing* brings Tilda Swinton into focus not as a singular author but as the center of an extended artistic network. Widely regarded as one of the most iconic figures of arthouse cinema in recent decades, her presence here is shaped through the work of long-time collaborators—including Pedro Almodóvar, Derek Jarman, and Jim Jarmusch. The exhibition unfolds as a constellation of film installations, environments, and photographic works that trace the boundaries between cinema, performance, and visual art. Rather than a retrospective, the project is built from fragments, reworkings, and spatial reconstructions, focusing on collaboration, memory, and artistic relationships, where authorship becomes shared and Swinton emerges through the work of others as much as her own.
Dates: 17 May – 28 June 2026
Opening hours: Friday–Sunday, 18:00–23:00
Venue: Onassis Stegi
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‘Homecoming’, Group show at the Salon and Private Art Space
This is the exhibition everyone will be talking about in the coming weeks.
We love the growing trend of placing contemporary art in unexpected spaces, and this one opens in a particularly compelling location.
The exhibition marks the inaugural project at the Salon and Private Art Space on Ithakis Street in Kypseli — a former residential home transformed into an art space. It is a group exhibition conceived by the legendary curator and art historian Matthias Arndt.
It’s bound to be excellent, and we’re very much looking forward to it.
Dates: 29 April – 27 June 2026
Opening hours: Thursday–Saturday, 12–8 pm
Venue: Arndt, Ithakis 31, Kypseli, 11257 Athens, Greece
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‘Mad House’, solo show by Tindara Spartà at Bernier/Eliades Gallery
The idea of the home as a stable, familiar space begins to loosen in Tindara Spartà’s new show, turning into something more open, uncertain, and quietly strange.
Spartà’s show at Bernier/Eliades Gallery, MAD HOUSE, moves through painting and sculpture to look at the house from the inside out. Elements that usually go unnoticed—tiles, pipes, doors—come forward and take on a new presence, repeating and expanding until they begin to shape the space around them. What once felt fixed starts to shift, and the domestic becomes something you have to navigate rather than simply inhabit.
Within this shifting interior, the recurring presence of dogs begins to take shape. They are not quite subjects, but rather a way of inhabiting the space itself—moving through it with a quiet attention, settled into it without any sense of urgency or escape. In contrast to the instability around them, they introduce a different rhythm, one that is patient, observant, and fully present.
Dates: April 23 – July 1, 2026
Venue : Bernier/Eliades Gallery, 11 Eptachalkou Street, Athens
Opening Hours: Tuesday-Friday: 11:00-18:30, Saturday: 12:00-16:00
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And one extra recommendation
‘Mythic Syntax’, Solo show by Dimitris Ntokos
Dimitris Ntokos’ new show continues his move from street-based work into a more defined gallery setting. Coming from a background in street art, Ntokos stays close to the visual language of the city—layered signs, coded symbols, and gestural marks that carry the energy of graffiti and public writing. In the shift into the gallery, these elements don’t disappear but get reorganized: they become more focused, more isolated, almost like fragments taken out of the urban flow and arranged into a system of their own. His works often feel like a constructed alphabet, where meaning comes through repetition, breaks, and accumulation rather than narrative.
They are shown here inside OKUPA Athens, the kind of space we love for the way it mixes uses without strict separation. It brings together a hotel, co-working spaces, and cultural programming, so art exists alongside daily activity rather than being set apart from it. Within this kind of environment, the exhibition sits naturally—less as a sealed-off presentation and more as something that enters into the rhythm of the place. In that sense, “Mythic Syntax” also mirrors its surroundings: a practice that moves between public and interior space, between raw gesture and curated form, without fully settling into one or the other.
Dates: 29 April – 30 May, 2026
Venue: Okupa, Psaromiligkou 9, Athens
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A Self-Guided Gallery Walk in Pangrati Neighborhood
Start your morning at Ohh Boy — a laid-back all-day café that’s perfect for easing into the neighborhood with good coffee and a light bite.
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From there, wander through Pangrati, one of Athens’ most vibrant and creative districts, where everyday life blends naturally with contemporary culture.
Continue to the National Gallery, a key cultural landmark offering a broad view of modern and contemporary Greek art.
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Next, visit Sianti Gallery, where a group exhibition brings together a renowned sculptor and his students, offering a glimpse into artistic dialogue across generations.
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End your walk at Threesome Ceramics — a studio-shop dedicated to contemporary ceramics. Even without a specific exhibition, it’s always a place worth visiting.
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A compact route that captures the spirit of Pangrati — local, creative, and easy to explore on foot.