On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the death of Fotis Kontoglou, the exhibition “Taximia”: In the Tradition of the Greek Mode: From History to Contemporary Painting explores the diachronic continuity of a visual mode that permeates Greek art from antiquity to the present. Rather than treating tradition as a static heritage or a style to be reproduced, the exhibition proposes it as a living, evolving method of seeing, thinking, and image-making—one that remains active across time.
Through approximately 150 works, the Greek line, “a thread that carries memory”, emerges as a bearer of deeper meaning. The Greek mode is understood as an attitude that shapes how the artist encounters the world. This continuity in painting is sustained not only by artists, but also by the dedication of individuals, collectors, and institutions who actively preserve and promote a living tradition. Through their participation, the Greek mode is revealed not as heritage, but as an ongoing dialogue, bridging past, present and future creation.
Private Collection
The exhibition’s curatorial approach focuses on the so-called Greek mode as a way of seeing and constructing the image, notes art historian and curator Niovi Kritikou. From the Minoan era through classical antiquity and Byzantine art, a mode emerges that brings together seemingly opposing elements: abstraction and narration, sacredness and everyday life, measure and rhythm, restraint and expressive tension. These elements persist over time not as fixed forms, but as recurring principles that adapt to new historical and cultural contexts.
Through these principles, the Greek mode establishes a relationship with the viewer that differs fundamentally from Western representational paradigms. Rather than functioning as an illusionistic window into space, the image becomes a field of encounter and dialogue, inviting the viewer into an active, meaningful relationship with the work. The image is not autonomous or self-contained, but socially and culturally active, inseparable from its role within a community.
Fotis Kontoglou occupies a central position in this narrative. His contribution lies in his profound understanding of Byzantine and post-Byzantine art and his ability to translate its principles into a modern artistic context. Kontoglou liberated Byzantine imagery from narrow notions of representation, transforming it into presence—an active visual language relevant to the contemporary world. His work exerted a decisive influence on subsequent generations, particularly artists associated with the Generation of the 1930s, who sought to articulate a modern Greek identity without severing ties to tradition.
The title Taximia, a term borrowed from music referring to improvisation within a traditional framework, aptly encapsulates the exhibition’s conceptual approach. Just as musical taximia involve free improvisation grounded in tradition, explains art historian Emmanouela Archangelaki, the artists improvise upon the Greek mode, reactivating it through personal expression.
This practice begins with Fotis Kontoglou, who translated the lessons of Byzantine and Greek art into a contemporary pictorial language. Artists of the Generation of the 1930s continued this effort, shaping what we now recognize as the Greek mode, one in which line, surface, and palette function as living presence and imprint of place. Contemporary artists do not imitate this mode; rather, they transcribe it into the visual language of the present.
At the heart of the exhibition lies the notion of a Greek script: a thread of memory shaped by light and the erosions of place, where motif carries collective experience and composition becomes a field of measure. The Greek mode does not observe the world from a distance; it traverses it, listens to it, and transcribes it into an image.
Through this encounter of works and generations, the exhibition proposes that the Greek mode is not a fixed aesthetic schema of the past, but an open method continuously reactivated in the present. The exhibition thus forms a public space of shared memory, where tradition is not passively inherited but actively experienced. Art becomes a communal practice, weaving together ideas, emotions, memory, history, and lived experience—a living art, inseparable from the experience it offers.
The exhibition highlights the continuity among key figures of modern Greek art -Stephanos Almaliotis, Aghinor Asteriadis, Fotis Kontoglou, Rallis Kopsidis, and Tasos Mantzavinos- through works from private collections managed by the Archive of Modern Greek Religious Art, as well as works generously loaned by the Vogiatzoglou Art Gallery (Yannis Moralis, Vasso Katraki, Kostas Papanikolaou, Konstantinos Parthenis, Yannis Tsarouchis, Pavlos Samios, Alekos Fassianos). These are presented alongside works by contemporary artists, including Demosthenis Avramidis, Nektarios Antonopoulos, Giorgos Armakollas, Fotis Varthis, Giannis Efthymiou, Markos Kampanis, Nikos Kanavos, Kostas Karakitsos, Christos Kehagioglou, Giorgos Kordis, Alekos Kyrarinis, Dina Liarostathi, Nektarios Mamais, Aimilios Metaxas, Stavroula Mitsakou, Anastasios Babatzias, Christos Papadakis, Xenia Papadopoulou, Gina Papadopoulou, Achilleas Papakostas, Fr. Stamatis Skliris, Kostas Papatriantafyllopoulos, Babis Pylarinos, Jenny Saridi, Hambis, Pantazis Tselios, Emmeleia Filippopoulou, and Faii Psychopaedopoulou.
Intro photo: Christos Kehagioglou Life Giving Fountain
