Anna Ballian (Curator Emerita, Benaki Museum), “Bacini or Immured Vessels on Post- Byzantine Churches, 16th-17th Century: The Case of Iznik, Italian and Local Ware”
by ZoomThe image of a small church with immured ceramic vessels on its walls is interwoven with representations of the Greek landscape, whether on the islands or on the mainland. The practice of decorating church façades with brightly decorated vessels is older than the 16th century and the Ottoman period in Greece, and is related to...
Polina Kosmadaki (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Head of the Department of Drawings and Prints, Benaki Museum), “Charting Mediterranean Archaisms in a Modern Framework: Christian Zervos and the Cahiers d’art Method”
by ZoomChristos or Christian Zervos (Argostoli 1889–Paris 1970) played a definitive role in shaping the cultural climate in interwar Paris through his journal Cahiers d’Αrt, which he founded in 1926 and published until 1960. It was one of the longest-lived modernist journals, which numbered 97 issues. As early as the first issue, Cahiers d’Αrt had focused...
Tassos Sakellaropoulos (Head of Historical Archives) and Maria Dimitriadou (Historical Archives), “1821, Before and After: Narrating and Curating 100 Years of Greek History”
by ZoomThe year 2021 marks the bicentenary of the 1821 declaration of the Greek War of Independence. To celebrate this major anniversary, the Benaki Museum, together with the Bank of Greece, the National Bank of Greece, and ALPHABANK are mounting a major exhibition of works of art and historical testimonies under the title “1821, Before and...
Greek Book Club: Λος Άντζελες· Οδηγώντας στη Νότια Καλιφόρνια της Σώτης Τριανταφύλλου
“Ενα πρωί βρήκα τα υπολείμματα των ημερών σου, είδα τις πατημασιές σου στην ερπετώδη γη, άκουσα πάλι την αναπνοή σου: στα ρημαγμένα τοπία, στη μακάβρια αταξία, σε είδα να γίνεσαι ένας άνθρωπος ασυνήθιστα συνηθισμένος. Ηθελα να σου φωνάξω πως όταν σε βρήκα ήσουν ήδη χαμένος, όμως, δεν σου είπα τίποτα· έμεινα να σε κοιτάζω με...
A Virtual Tour of the Museum of Cycladic Art with Greek Prehistoric Archaeologist Metaxia Routsi
by ZoomJoin the UCLA SNF Center and the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, for an inside look into the Museum’s unparalleled collection of Cycladic art. Go behind the scenes to view figurines, vases, tools, weapons, and pottery from all phases of the distinctive Cycladic island culture that flourished in the central Aegean during the Early Bronze...
Conversation with the Mayor: The Honorable Petros Doukas, Mayor of Sparta
With a new museum and hospital underway, and with plans for a new airport, the city of Sparta is undergoing dramatic changes. In this wide-ranging conversation, UCLA SNF Hellenic Center Director Sharon Gerstel and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Associate Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, chat with...
A Conversation with the Mayor: The Honorable Moses Elisaf, Mayor of Ioannina
by ZoomMoses Elisaf was born in Ioannina in 1954 and graduated from the University of Athens in 1979. His parents were Holocaust survivors who managed to escape the roundup during which most of Ioannina's Jews were deported to Auschwitz; only 9% of the community survived. Elisaf is a pathologist, a professor of internal medicine at Ioannina...
Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, Museum Director, Kehila Kedosha Janina, “Meet Me on the Corner of Broome and Allen: A Visit to Kehila Kedosha Janina”
by ZoomMarcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos gives us a virtual tour of Kehila Kedosha Janina, the only Romaniote synagogue in the Western Hemisphere. The congregation was founded in 1906 by Greek Jewish immigrants from Ioannina, but the synagogue itself was not erected until 1927. The years from then until the Second World War were a time of prosperity...
Greek Book Club: Ρίκα Μπενβενίστε, Λούνα
Στο βιβλίο αυτό, η βιογραφία της Λούνας ανοίγει ένα μονοπάτι για να ξανασκεφτούμε τους Εβραίους της Θεσσαλονίκης στην πόλη τους, τη Shoah, τη φτώχεια και τα ανάποδα μεταπολεμικά χρόνια. Επειδή ήταν φτωχή, αγράμματη και γυναίκα, τα ίχνη της εύκολα χάνονται ανάμεσα στους αφανείς της ιστορίας. Αρχειακά τεκμήρια, καταγεγραμμένες μαρτυρίες, φωτογραφίες και προσωπικές αναμνήσεις συναρμόζονται ως...
Leon Saltiel, “Dehumanizing the Dead: The Destruction of Thessaloniki’s Jewish Cemetery during World War II”
by ZoomThis lecture will discuss the destruction of Thessaloniki’s ancient and vast Jewish cemetery which commenced in December 1942. The cemetery, located close to the city center, had long become the object of a dispute between the Christian and Jewish communities, with the former wishing to expropriate it in favor of the city’s new University and...
Rena Molho, “Problems of Incorporating the Holocaust into the Greek Collective Memory”
by ZoomTolerance of antisemitism and neo-Nazism in Greece in recent years shows that the Holocaust has not yet been incorporated into the Greek national consciousness. This could be (partly) because Greece did not commemorate the Holocaust until it became a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2005. By reviewing the reactions of the Greek...
A Celebration of Greek Language Day: Professor Kathryn Morgan, “Know Thyself: Ancient Proverbs and the Road to Wisdom.”
Professor Kathryn Morgan, UCLA Department of Classics “Know Thyself: Ancient Proverbs and the Road to Wisdom” The Sages of Ancient Greece were renowned for their pithy formulations of proverbial wisdom. Perhaps the most famous of these was the saying inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi: “Know thyself!” (γνῶθι σεαυτόν), a command that had...