Productions / Co-Productions

A special chapter for the J. F. Costopoulos Foundation, and a decisive one for its identity, is the in-house production or joint production of exhibitions, conferences, art programmes and music and dance events.

The in-house productions began in 1994 with the exhibition of Jannis Kounellis, a major international artist, and continue unabated to this day. Originally focused mainly on art exhibitions and the accompanying catalogues, this activity gradually expanded to additional fields such as theatre, music, dance, cinema and the humanities.

Of course, art exhibitions are what have established the Foundation in the art-loving public’s mind among the top private institutions that showcase and promote in Greece and abroad the work of Greek or Greek-born artists who gained international recognition, mainly in the second half of the twentieth century and predominantly from the 1960s onwards.

The fact that the Foundation did not have its own venue turned out to be a positive thing, enabling the use of unconventional exhibition spaces which reinforced their impact and underscored the dynamic and the alternative nature of contemporary art, while also leading to collaborations with several other institutions in the country, in tune with the Foundation’s flexible and public-minded character. Many of these collaborations continued over time and expanded into additional fields, often with excellent results and contributing to a change in the way contemporary art is approached, perceived and treated in the country. It is worth noting our collaborations with the former Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, the Benaki Museum, the National gallery and the Athens School of Fine Arts-the latter’s new exhibition venue was inaugurated in the 1990s, with support from the Foundation, with an exhibition of the sculptor Takis.

Before going into the detailed presentation of our productions, we wish to thank the artists and scholars for their trust in the Foundation in its early days as well as later, and all our associates without whose unstinting support and hands-on contribution a sparsely staffed Foundation could not have succeeded in all these ventures. To them we owe our good reputation and the fact that our name remains a guarantee for a soundly organised project in Greece or abroad.