Participation in the exhibition “The Search for Happiness – Chryssa Romanos”

The Alpha Bank Art Collection is participating in the exhibition “The Search for Happiness for as Many as Possible – Chryssa Romanos” with 1 work of art:

• Shooting, 1965, oil on canvas, 102 x 83 cm

The work is part of the collage pieces created by Chryssa Romanos attempting the social critique of consumerism in contemporary culture.

Theme and aim

The retrospective exhibition for Chryssa Romanos forms part of a wider circle of exhibitions taking place at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens up until the autumn to 2024 under the umbrella title “What if Women Ruled the World?”

It presents representative works from all periods of Chryssa Romanos’ oeuvre, aiming to showcase their correlation and relationship between them. It also highlights the historical, political and social context within which they were created.

The exhibition curators are Eleni Koukou and Dimitris Tsoumplekas.

The sections of the exhibition

The exhibition presents milestones in Chryssa Romanos’ oeuvre in chronological order:

• Works from the time she left for Paris (1961)
• Historical collages from 1965
• Grand Meccano sculptural constructions from the late 60s, inspired by the building kit toys of the same name, typically intended for boys
• Silkscreen prints from the famed Mec Art Graphic atelier in Paris
• More mature works, such as Maps-Labyrinths, with their notable décollage technique on Plexiglas

The video “Amour – Chryssa in the cities” serves as the epilogue of the exhibition. It includes rich photographic material from the archive of Chryssa Romanos and her husband Nikos Kessanlis.

Her life and work in a nutshell

Chryssa Romanos (1931-2006) was born in Athens. She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Yiannis Moralis and Andreas Georgiadis. In 1961 she relocated to Paris, where she settled for 20 years. This period proved decisive in terms of shaping her artistic identity. In 1981 she returned to Athens.

She embraced abstraction as far back as her first solo exhibition. A large part of her work consists of various types of collages. Her series of Meccano sculptural constructions which commenced at the end of the 60s heralded Chyssa Romanos’ relationship with the arts.

Art as a form of critique

Her critical stance towards social and artistic issues was always at the core of Romanos’ career in the arts.

Her work centres on:

• Osmosis of art and day-to-day life
• Social critique of consumerism
• Political interest in social inequalities and injustice
• Democratisation of the arts

These elements evolve along with Romanos’ artistic maturity, but also the changes in the social and political environment.

Artists of the diaspora

Chryssa Romanos belongs to a group of Greek artists of the diaspora who lived and worked chiefly in large capital cities of the West. These included her husband Nikos Kessanlis (1930-2004). The work of artists of the diaspora helped shape the international artistic movements of their era.