Dancing Goddesses: Dio Horia Contemporary Art Platform, Mykonos, Greece

Dancing goddesses curated by Marina Vranopoulou (May 27 - July 20)

Participating artists: Carlos Betancourt | Katherine Bradford | Sam Friedman | Hulda Guzman | David Harrison | Nir Hod | Robert Lazzarini | Olga Migliaressi-Phoca | Nina Paley | Rallou Panagiotou | Natasha Papadopoulou | Erik Parker | Alex Ruthner | Kenny Scharf | Kristen Schiele | Emily Mae Smith & Adam Henry.

Dancing Goddesses is a group exhibition comprised of 16 international artists. Conceived and curated by Marina Vranopoulou the show will open on May 27 on the island of Mykonos at Dio Horia.

The exhibition takes as its starting point a catalyzing episode that took place in the island of Delos that transformed the island’s nature and defined its heritage. In Ancient Greek mythology, Delos, a once unregistered floating personified island, gained its name and position by accepting to become birthplace to ancient twin deities Apollo and Artemis. During the Peloponnesian War, the city-state of Athens purified the island by removing all dead bodies and exiling its inhabitants. Thus, Delos was rendered both as a deathless and birthless place. While embarking on a fragmented, almost surrealistic narrative, this exhibition focuses on the corrupting relation between civilization and nature.

It is estimated that, circa 90 B.C., about 30,000 people lived on this small island, which is no more than a dot on the map of the Mediterranean. At this time, all these people, in spite of their varied nationalities and different historical and cultural backgrounds, managed to forge a peaceable society.

Through a multi discipline body of work, the exhibition uses light and rich colors to enhance its narrative of questioning political authority in western societies through the years, to this day.
Specifically, in the works exhibited there is no human presence. Traditional landscapes, and ‘Apollonian’ sunsets, fill in the space and give form to an imaginative universe. A surrealistic world populated by a cast of animals, mythological figures and spirits spend the exhibition days and nights in Mykonos, only 2 km wide straight from Delos’ current ruins.