What a year it was. We left 2021 on days like this last year and thought we had, to some extent, banished the great pandemic crisis affecting the entire planet and, of course, artists and art production. Before we could raise our heads, Russia invaded Ukraine and plunged the world — and the world of art — into new adventures.

Works of art disappeared from the museums of Ukraine, pro-Putin artists left the big venues, and we all began to look in the history books for the past of Kyiv and Ukrainian culture.

On a parallel trajectory linked to the trend of decolonization and the will of a new generation to “correct” the mistakes of the past, major museums last year reassessed their collections and did two things: cut ties with controversial donors and donors and gradually return antiquities and art to the countries to which they belong, such as the treasures of Benin and fragments of the Parthenon.

In Greece, we have seen efforts to rebuild closed art spaces – theatres, cinemas, museums – after the pandemic have had to deal with public reluctance and fear of being “closed” indoors, as well as increased operating costs. which gradually led to the war in Ukraine. During the summer, tourism gave an economic boost to archaeological sites – we also recorded the opening of the Archaeological Museum of Chania – the Athens Festival met its audience again, and the audience celebrated the theaters and indoor stages at the beginning of the new season. . The need for something different and alive has lifted many people off their sofas, who have even gone to the National Gallery to see paintings by Picasso and Mondrian instead.

While it’s tempting to talk about outstanding issues, stakes and complaints, as we do in the daily report; from no policy on the book to the closed “Acropolis” or the chronic problem of the Camerata, today we do a little review of the past year. Cultural Editorial K, in print and online, has identified 22 events for 2022.

Written by: Ilias Maglinis, Giota Sikka, Dimitris Rigopoulos, Nikos Vatopoulos, Maria Katsunaki, Giota Mirtsiotis, Nicolas Zois, Maro Vasiliadou, Emilios Harbis, Alexandra Scaraki, Eleni Tsanatu, Dimitris Atinakis.
Sakis Ioannidis

MARCH

The cancellation of performances by the Russian soprano, first at the Bavarian State Opera and then at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, set off an international discussion about the attitude of the liberal West towards artists who previously expressed support for Vladimir Putin. about the invasion of Ukraine.
N. Z.

APRIL

The decision of the collector D. Daskalopoulos to donate works from his collection to four museums (EMST, Tate, Guggenheim, MCA Chicago) was a step with a double meaning: they enriched their collections and created a network of synergies among themselves. On a symbolic level, the donation shows that contemporary art, as a public good, breathes beautifully and freely outside the walls of private collections.
M. B.

JUNE

Poetry, stories and commentary with a political tinge, endless energy on stage, humor and interaction with the audience confirmed the greatness, as well as how accessible one of the most important artists of the punk rock scene is at a concert with a warm audience that grew into a party and dances in the rain in charming Herodium as part of the Athens Festival.
HOW.

His return from Sicily, in the form of a “deposit” for a “permanent” stay in the Acropolis Museum, reignited the debate over the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures and set a legal precedent that led to the return of three fragments from the Vatican. The British Museum finds itself in a quandary in the face of international public opinion.
S.I.

JULY

His concert at the Panionio stadium became not only one of the most massive in the field of modern domestic rap. It is also proof that there is a large young audience that is out of the mainstream media and older music lovers. For all intents and purposes, what was once called the “generation gap” has returned to the forefront in modern and sometimes political terms.
N. Z.

Unforgettable show. No, because for two hours the nine actors of Ulrich Rasche walked non-stop on the moving disk, reproducing the text of Aeschylus. But why is this choreographic score of Agamemnon electrified by the intensity, the rhythm, the complex, primitive language it used. An apocalyptic twist on the curse of violence, earthly and at the same time “unreal”.
MK.

Not that Gallagher was giving great live performances. The thing is, under the stage where he stood in his almost annoyingly predictable “I can’t see you” style, there was a sweetly homely atmosphere. The City banner, the faded Oasis prints, the impromptu “I want to play guitar” poster on the “Slide Away” poster, and the tight hugs between strangers on “Champagne Supernova” were more important souvenirs than a “perfect” concert.
THIS.

August

The author, although seriously injured, survived. The event itself has its own semiotics: obscurantist Islam attacks the leading representative of typically European, Western art – the art of the novel.
HM.

SEPTEMBER

After 60 years, the Bishopric of Sikinos received an award for a complex and complex restoration project of an important monument located on the island of the barren line. We had a lot of excavations last summer, with new finds to be explored, but we also had the opening of exhibitions and museums in a normally forgotten region.
G.S.

Big exhibition “Asia Minor. Shine. Eradication. Destruction. Creation” at the Benaki Museum in Piraeus is a journey through time with more than 1,100 exhibits, for which private and public collections collaborated – primarily the Center for the Study of Asia Minor – but also ordinary people and scientists from many specialties.
M. B.

Prize-indicator for the course of the world. This year it was awarded to an architect working with vulnerable people in Africa who makes life more sustainable by delivering. The work of Francis Kere (Burkina Faso, 1965) is “a poetic expression of light” and he is the first African to win the Pritzker Prize.
YES.

Jafar Panahi received the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival for his film No Bears. He, along with his fellow directors Mohammad Rasulov and Mustafa Alehmad, has been in custody since July. Earlier, the great Asghar Faradi withdrew from the Oscars his film “Hero” in protest against what is happening in Iran. In the same month, Mahsa Amini was killed.
A. H.

OCTOBER

On the feast day of St. Demetrius, Nikos Kazantzakis’s anecdotal novel “On Aniforos” (1946) is published, a few months after the purchase of the copyright for the international Greek writer by the Dioptra publishing house. The venture has commercial appeal and is accompanied by a re-release of his entire work by Easter 2023.
D.R.

The restart of the theater brought many performances and spectators to the stages, and in the summer to the festivals of the country, mainly in Central and Southern Greece. This was a foreshadowing of the autumn and winter glut that followed in theaters, which began with pre-sales and an increase of about 10-15% in audiences, an increase in younger audiences, as well as Greek works being staged. and will continue into 2023.
G.S.

A conversation with the Greek translator Rita Kolaitis was enough to place me in the world of a French prose writer who analyzes, in tight autobiographical language, a woman’s “state”, pain, memory, but also the happiness of reading the literature that most confuses. important elements of timeless and contemporary storytelling.
YES.

NOVEMBER

The announcement by the Ministry of Culture of the rescue of the historic house of Anton Prokes von Osten (and later the residence of the Greek Conservatory) resolves a long-standing issue. The neoclassical building, built in 1836 at Phedia Street 3, is connected both with the history of Athens during the reign of Otho and with the musical history of the country.
NB

We returned to the debut of Thodoros Angelopoulos (1970) and Pantelis Voulgaris (1972). The “other” Greece of the 1960s, murders taking place literally in a village in Epirus or symbolically in a city house in Athens, a country devoid of idealizations and delusions, cruel, inhospitable. “Anna’s Consulate” is one Greece and the other “Representation”. We have roots in both.
MK.

DECEMBER

At 61 Patision Street, in the Papaleonardo tenement house, Maria Callas lived from 1937 to 1945. The building with eclectic Art Nouveau morphology is the work of Kostas Kitsikis and was built in the mid-20s. Its restoration was announced by the Municipality of Athens and Anaplasi S.A. It will house the Maria Callas Academy of Lyrical Art.
NB

Whether many people like the work of Christophoros Papakaliatis or not, the fact is that his own series was the first purely Greek production to be adopted by Netflix. The story of a musician who leaves for the countryside and falls in love with a younger girl is not original, but the performance is neat, and some of the performances attract attention.
A. H.

A project is launched to complete and modernize the cultural infrastructure of the Athens Conservatory, designed by the architect Ioannis Despotopoulos, but left 50% unfinished since the first day of its operation in 1976. Multi-purpose spaces for the education, production and hosting of cultural events are being added, with a total area of ​​5300 sq.m.
D.R.

This is the gateway to the Polycentric Goat Museum in the cradle of ancient Macedonia. Its function will strengthen the international exposition of the burial place of Philip II, the palaces and the necropolis with the royal burial places of the Temenides. This is the work of many years of collective efforts of many governments, but it is recorded in History with the date of its discovery at the end of this year.
G. M.