ALEX MYLONAS

ART, AS LIFE

at the Former Elementary School Lakkas, Paxi Island

 Opening: Saturday 18 June 2011, time 21.00

Duration: 18 June - 31 August 2011

At the former Elementary School Lakkas, Municipality of Paxoi

Curator: Katerina Koskina

The Municipality of Paxos and the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art present the exhibition Alex Mylonas. Art as Life with the artist's works from the collection of the museum. The exhibition is organized with the generous donation of the J. F. Costopoulos Foundation and held to commemorate the birthplace of the artist Alex Mylonas, which, in September 2007, offered the whole of her oeuvre and the building of the museum in Athens (5, Ag. Assomaton Square) to the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art. The presentation of the artist's art in Paxoi will give the opportunity for the inhabitants and the visitors of the island to experience the work of one of the few Greek women sculptors of her era which gained international recognition.

The exhibition Alex Mylonas. Art as Life, follows through specific channels and mainly the sculptures in metal, the formation and evolution of the artistic journey from 1955 to 1996. The issues presented are distinguished from the moulding of the forms, the importance of volume, shadow and contours, and the consistency of the whole. Especially after 1980 and until now her art acquires a personal sculptural idiom, with its own expressive autonomy.

Alex Mylonas studied sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1945 until 1950 in the studio of M. Tombros. She organized her the first solo exhibition in Athens in 1955 and from 1954 participated in the artistic group "Workshop". Among the group exhibitions she participated, is the 30th Venice Biennale (1960), where she represented Greece with G. Spyropoulos, A. Kontopoulos and L. Lameras, the exhibitions "Greek painters and sculptors in Paris and Religious Art" (Paris, 1962), "New Sculpture" (Museum Rodin, 1963), etc. In 1986 the National Gallery held a retrospective of her works, and in 2004 the Museum of Contemporary Art Alex Mylonas was inaugurated in Athens. Her early efforts had as a thematic starting point the human figure, however stylized, one recognizes in many of them the artist's acquaintance with the work of Giacometti and Zadkine. Exploring her own expressive language, comes around in 1960 with metal sculpture inspired by the expressionistic vocabulary and the mythological theme and is characterized by angular formats, contrasting complete-void and curvy-sharp. After 1960, much clearly since 1980, the sculpture gets the accent, which, especially in marble, white and colored, is characterized by a more refined technique, more polished surfaces and a more compact and harmonious volume.

Sponsoring exhibition installation: Company NAIL2 NAIL

For more information, please contact:

Municipality of Paxos, 49 082 Paxi tel. +26620 32207, +26620 32100

www.paxi.gr

Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, www.mmca.org.gr, mmcart@mmca.org.gr, tel.  + 2310 240002

Museum Alex Mylona - Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, www.mmca-mam.gr, mam@mmca-mam.gr, tel +210 3215717