WOMEN IN ART: This Week’s Recommendations from Athens
Throughout the history of modern art, there have been a few exhibitions that were not just groundbreaking but defining—those that framed ideas and artistic eras and ultimately shaped the canon. The 2022 Venice Biennale, curated by Cecilia Alemani, was one such moment. Alemani brought to the forefront voices and artists—especially women—from around the globe who had been long marginalized, left out of a canon largely dictated by wealthy white men.
Why are we bringing this up now? Because since that Biennale, we’ve seen a growing wave of exhibitions dedicated to these women and to women’s art in general—and that’s both exciting and necessary. Even locally, this spotlight is growing. So this week, we’re dedicating our recommendations to women artists.
That said, there’s something a bit unsettling about the fact that we still feel the need to dedicate an entire section to women artists—as if it’s still something separate or exceptional. Hopefully, one day, we won’t have to celebrate women specifically because they are women.
Wishing you a wonderful week,
filled with powerful, inspiring art.
Shani Werner & the ATHENS ART TOURS Team
“Anatomy of Architecture” — Solo Exhibition by Simone Leigh
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC)
On view until 31 October 2025
It feels fitting to open this list with a show by Simone Leigh, the American artist who captured our hearts at the 2022 Biennale. Leigh was not only the first Black woman to represent the U.S. at the Biennale, she also won the prestigious Golden Lion award for her work.
Working primarily in sculpture and installation, Leigh explores Black female identity and the evolution of its visual representation through time. Her work often merges the female body with architectural forms or domestic vessels. At the stunning SNFCC plaza, three of her monumental bronze sculptures are now on display. Their presence in the open public space is striking—there’s something haunting in seeing a naked Black female body on such a scale. But Leigh’s women are larger than life. Their power, their dignity, seem to bridge the fragility of nudity with commanding force.
“As She Sees It: Three Women, Three Gazes” — Group Exhibition
Featuring Eleni Bagaki, Sofia Mitsola, and Janice Nowinski
Eleni Koroneou Gallery, 30 Dimofontos St. & 7 Thorikion St., Athens
On view until 19 July 2025
As an art student, I remember being deeply influenced by the writings of British critic John Berger—one of the clearest and most compelling voices in the study of art and visual culture. His landmark work Ways of Seeing explores how images—especially those in mass media—shape our reality and subtly transmit ideology. Berger famously coined the concept of the male gaze to describe the way women are visually objectified in art and advertising. “Men act and women appear,” he wrote. “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”
This show at Eleni Koroneou Gallery directly engages with the politics of vision. It brings together three painters, each exploring the way women are seen—and how they see. Through distinct painting styles, each artist seeks to reclaim the power of looking and being seen, challenging the visual traditions that have historically cast women as passive subjects.
“Apocalypse Now and Then” — Solo Exhibition by Andra Ursuţa
DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra Island
On view until 31 October 2025
Every summer, the opening of the DESTE Foundation exhibition on Hydra Island marks a major moment in the Greek art calendar. Each year, the museum invites an international artist to respond to the dramatic architecture of the former slaughterhouse, creating site-specific installations that reframe the space and reimagine the role of art within it.
This year, the spotlight is on Romanian-born artist Andra Ursuţa (b. 1979), who also gained attention during Alemani’s 2022 Biennale, where she occupied a major space in the central exhibition. Ursuţa is one of the most intriguing and unconventional sculptors working today. Her material choices push contemporary sculpture into bold, unsettling territory—melding bronze casts with 3D-printed plastic, drift bottles, garbage, broken statues. The result is a jarring yet hypnotic fusion of the sacred and the discarded.
Thematically, Ursuţa has long focused on the female body, previously exploring it in futuristic, often erotic forms. In this latest show, she turns her gaze backward—toward classical antiquity and archaeological remains—layering yet another stratum into the deep time of art history.
Let us know if you’d like help planning a visit to any of these exhibitions, or if you want to join one of our guided tours. See you around Athens!
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