ATHENS.- EΜΣΤ is presenting the first solo presentation in Greece of the critically acclaimed photographer Lola Flash (USA).

Working at the forefront of queer visual politics for more than four decades, their work challenges stereotypes and gender, sexual and racial preconceptions.

An active member of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) during the time of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, Flash was notably featured in the 1989 “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” poster. Their art and activism are profoundly connected, fuelilng a life-long commitment to visibility and preserving the legacy of LGBTQIA+ and communities of colour worldwide.

SALT (2011–ongoing) is a series of portraits that feature iconic women aged over seventy, who have had a quiet impact on their respective worlds and are still passionately engaged in their life’s work.

In a culture where beauty is equated with youth, these women are not only beautiful but accomplished and making significant contributions to society. This intimate portrait series reflects their wisdom, attractiveness and power which is often disregarded because of ageism.

The subjects of the exhibition include, among others, Tony Parks, photographer and daughter of legendary photographer Gordon Parks; Koho, a master sumi-e painter; and renowned activist Esther Cooper Jackson. The portraits were taken where their subjects felt most at home, in order to capture the texture of their private lives.

SALT aims to challenge the erasure and invisibility that older women experience and to highlight the deep-rooted cultural and social biases that remove them from the public sphere.

Flash works in the tradition of twentieth-century portraiture, using a 4×5 large-format camera, as they believe that this process conveys the importance of the sitting to the subject, and yields a truer image.

What better way to celebrate women artists than to dedicate an entire museum to their work?

The exhibition forms part of What If Women Ruled the World?, a cycle of exhibitions which, over the course of 2024, will see the entire museum in Athens taken over by women artists and artists who identify as female.

Initiated by the museum's artistic director, Katerina Gregos, the title of the programme is inspired by an iconic neon work of the same name by Yael Bartana, which has been reconstructed as a large-scale outdoor installation on the north and south façades of the museum.

Artists currently on view:

Danai Anesiadou (Belgium-Greece)
D POSSESSIONS
Curator: Ioli Tzanetaki

Yael Bartana (Israel)
What if Women Ruled the World and Two Minutes to Midnight
Curator: Stamatis Schizakis

Claudia Comte (Switzerland)
The Origin of the Shockwave Ripple Effect (yellow and turquoise)
Curator: Daphne Vitali

Hadassah Emmerich (Netherlands)
Epicurean Eden
Artistic production | Coordination: Yannis Arvanitis
Supported by the Mondriaan Fund

Lola Flash (USA)
SALT
Curator: Ioli Tzanetaki

Malvina Panagiotidi (Greece)
Αll Dreams Are Vexing
Curator: Anna Mykoniati

Leda Papaconstantinou (Greece)
Time in my hands. A Retrospective
Curator: Tina Pandi

Chryssa Romanos (Greece)
The Search for Happiness for as Many as Possible
Curators: Eleni Koukou and Dimitris Tsoumplekas

WOMEN, together
The first rehang of the museum's collection since 2019, WOMEN, together addresses a major issue confronting all museums today: the under-representation of women and the urgency of gender equality.

Curated by Katerina Gregos and Eleni Koukou, the exhibition features works from EMΣΤ’s collection, including the first presentation of a number of works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift to EMΣΤ, the most important and generous donation in the museum’s history. The exhibition also includes seven new acquisitions, as well as a new long-term loan of a major work by Etel Adnan (Lebanon), courtesy of the Saradar Collection (Paris/Beirut).

Artists include: Etel Adnan (1925, Beirut, Lebanon), Diana Al-Hadid (1981, Aleppo, Syria), Ghada Amer (1963, Cairo, Egypt), Helene Appel (1976, Karlsruhe, Germany), Bertille Bak (1983, Arras, France), Karla Black (1972, Alexandria, UK), Hera Büyüktaşciyan (1984, Istanbul, Turkey), Christina Dimitriadis (1967, Thessaloniki, Greece), Marina Gioti (1972, Athens, Greece), Eleni Kamma (1973, Athens, Greece), Maria Loizidou (1958, Limassol, Cyprus), Tala Madani (1981, Tehran, Iran), Despina Meimaroglou (1944, Alexandria, Egypt), Annette Messager (1943, Berck-Sur-Mer, France), Tracey Moffatt (1960, Brisbane, Australia), Eleni Mylonas (1944, Athens, Greece), Rivane Neuenschwander (1967, Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Cornelia Parker (1956, Cheshire, UK), Agnieszka Polska (1985, Lublin, Poland), Christiana Soulou (1961, Athens, Greece), Aspa Stassinopoulou (1935–2017, Athens, Greece), Maria Tsagkari (1981, Piraeus, Greece), Paky Vlassopoulou (1985, Athens, Greece), Aleksandra Waliszewska (1976, Warsaw, Poland), and Gillian Wearing (1963, Birmingham, UK).