ATHENS.- The Organization of Culture, Sports and Youth of the
 City of Athens is presenting the exhibition Maria Lassnig. The Future is Invented with Fragments from the Past, realised with the kind support of the Republic of Austria, organised in collaboration with the Maria Lassnig Foundation, from 7 April – 16 July 2017 at the Municipal Gallery of Athens, Metaxourgio Building.

The show is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and it is the last exhibition project that Maria Lassnig was able to plan personally with the curator. In focus are significant works reflecting the artist’s relationship to classical antiquity, mythology, gender and to the extraordinary Greek landscape.

The historic magnitude of the artist Maria Lassnig (1919 – 2014) is being accentuated once more through this exhibition and its interaction with documenta and its theme, “Learning from Athens”. Maria Lassnig was a frequent visitor to Greece since the 1950s and consistently produced works that showcased her love for the Mediterranean landscape and explored the role and position of the woman in ancient mythology. Lassnig’s decision to present her intricate relationship with Greece towards the end of her lifetime is realised through this exhibition today in Athens.

The title of the exhibition comes from the celebrated Austrian writer Friederike Mayröcker and Lassnig’s confidante of many years. Around fifty works are on show, provided by the exhibition’s main supporter, the Maria Lassnig Foundation, as well as by three of the most important museums in Austria, The Albertina Museum and the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (mumok) in Vienna and Neue Galerie Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz.

The works of the exhibition illuminate typical characteristics of Maria Lassnig’s body of work: self-portraiture and her concept of “body awareness” that form its central core, the painterly rendering of the inner and outer worlds, as well as animal portrayals and landscapes. In an unusual selection from Maria Lassnig’s oeuvre the exhibition spotlights her unique visual idiom, in which she combines science with a subjective emotional life, and Mediterranean landscapes with figures from ancient mythology.

Maria Lassnig’s work has been widely recognised by important museums, foundations and international organisations, such as the Venice Biennale who awarded the artist with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2013. Maria Lassnig’s work was already represented at documenta 7 (1982) and documenta 10 (1997) during her lifetime and it is part of numerous public and private collections.

A catalogue in English and Greek is being published on the occasion of the exhibition by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, including texts by Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Peter Pakesch, Ingrid Rowland, Elisabeth Schlebrügge, Amy Sillman and Denys Zacharopoulos. The publication is realised with the kind support of the Federal Chancellery of Austria.

The accompanying public programme including screenings of Lassnig’s film oeuvre, academic lectures, guided tours and educational programmes, is designed in order to provide a deeper insight into the exhibited works and to transpire Lassnig’s oeuvre to the wider public.

The realization of the show is a result of the fruitful collaboration between the Curator of the exhibition, Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Artistic Director of the Municipal Gallery of Athens, Denys Zacharopoulos and the Chairman of the Board of the Maria Lassnig Foundation, Peter Pakesch.