The essentials:
Exhibit:Athens-Sparta
Gallery: Onassis Cultural Center
Location: Olympic Tower, 645 Fifth Ave., NYC
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Cost: Free
Exhibit closes: May 12, 2007
New York’s got a lot of history, but it certainly doesn’t go as far back as Greece. Now through May 12, you can see a selection of ancient art—we’re talking 8th to 4th centuries BC—from Greece for the first time in the United States at the Athens-Sparta exhibit at the Onassis Cultural Center. Unlike the steep admission price to see the Greek collections at most New York museums, like the extensive collection at the Met, this is free.
Looking at these ancient artifacts is like peering back in time. Although, when you think about it, the fragile pottery isn’t that far off from our modern-day dishware. The exhibit displays 289 rare works from both Athens and Sparta—some of which have never traveled overseas before. The art and archaeological artifacts are broken up into three categories:
The first section explores their artistic, social, and cultural developments from the Late Geometric period through the Archaic period (8th to the 5th centuries B.C.), including metal work, pottery, and public monuments.
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The two other sections in Athens-Sparta represent the artistic development during the 5th century B.C., in the broader context of the continuously changing dynamics between the two cities, during the Persian Wars (500 B.C. to 449 B.C.) and the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C. to 404 B.C.).
The standout piece in the collection is one of the Athenian Kore from the Acropolis Museum. Other gems include a mid-4th-century marble statue of Athena, arrowheads from the 5th-century battlefield Thermopylae, and the 5th-century marble statue of the hoplite Leonidas.
Interestingly, artifacts similar to the ones on display at the Onassis Cultural Center actually get displayed in Athens metro stations thanks to the renovations that were done in preparation for the Olympics. Kinda puts a new spin on New York’s subways being an art gallery, considering one is MTA's Arts for Transit public artwork program and the other is more organic, found art.
At the rate things are going, though, New Yorkers may have to pay for more than the ride to Rockefeller Center if they want to enjoy Greek art. Greece’s cultural minister George Voulgarakis has been on a mission to retrieve all Greek art and artifacts pillaged by other countries, and the UN has adopted "The Return or Restitution of Cultural Property to their Countries of Origin.” So far, Los Angeles and Germany have returned artifacts, but England continues to hold out. So what does Mr. Voulgarakis have to say about the Athens-Sparta exhibit here in New York? He calls it a "unique exhibition," and went on to say: "For the first time, two magnificent cities of antiquity are being projected in a modern multicultural city.”
Do you think Greece has the right to demand that museums around the world return their Greek art?
