ATHENS – SPARTA EXHIBITION: LINKING ANCIENT GREECE with the CONTEMPORARY WORLD.

ATHENS – SPARTA EXHIBITION: LINKING ANCIENT GREECE with the CONTEMPORARY WORLD.

«We want Greek antiquities to continue to be our best ambassadors all over the world, and we want millions of young people to share the knowledge of ancient Greek art, » said Greece’s Minister of Culture, Dr. Georgios A. Voulgarakis, in his address inaugurating the new exhibition, Athens-Sparta: From the 8th to the 5th Centuries B.C., at the elegant, high-energy reception on Tuesday evening, December 5, at the Onassis Cultural Center. «The Athens-Sparta exhibition is an important opportunity to highlight our rich cultural heritage, in that such high-level events represent Greece internationally in the best possible way. »

Athens-Sparta, curated by Dr. Nikos Kaltsas, Director of the National Archaeological Museum of Greece, is the seventh major exhibition held at the Onassis Cultural Center since its inception in 1999. Judging by the evening’s attendance, which included numerous dignitaries and eminent scholars as well as many other distinguished guests, Athens-Sparta is likely to become the Center’s most highly-attended exhibition (the last exhibition, From Byzantium to Modern Greece: Hellenic Art in Adversity, 1453-1830, drew a record number of 55,000 viewers and critical acclaim from important art critics, journalists, and newspapers).

Dr. Voulgarakis thanked the Alexander Onassis Public Benefit Foundation for its thirty years of service to culture, education, the environment, health, and social solidarity, and its affiliate, the Alexander Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA) whose cultural forum, the Onassis Cultural Center in New York, has done its utmost to promote Greek culture in America since 1999. «The Foundation’s new board of directors continues to promote the importance of the Greek spirit and its contribution to the shaping of modern civilization. »

Comprised of almost 300 artifacts of ivory, bronze, stone, and pottery, dating from the 8th to the 5th centuries B.C., -- some never having been shown outside of Sparta* -- Athens-Sparta is an innovative exhibition, the first of its size and complexity on the topic. The show illustrates the beauty, complexity, refinement, and sophistication of Laconic art while exploring the differences and similarities in the approach to war, peace, political theory, art, and commerce of these two powerful city-states, pitted against each other as cultural and political rivals in a history so prototypical, so unforgettable, that it has been an infinite source of inspiration linking the past with the present through centuries of creative thought.

The exhibition includes loans from the Archaeological Museum of Sparta, the Acropolis Museum, the Epigraphical Museum, the Kerameikos Museum, the National Archaeological Museum, the Numismatic Museum, 3rd Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, the Archaeological Museums in Marathon, Olympia, Rhodes, all located in Greece. Also included are pieces from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the American Numismatic Society in New York.

In his address, Anthony S. Papadimitriou, President of the Alexander Onassis Public Benefit Foundation noted that the parallel and conflicting histories of Athens and Sparta «echo through the resonance of the centuries, a resonance that transcends cultural and historical boundaries, uniting ancient Greece with today’s Greece, and ancient Greece with the contemporary world.» Mr. Papadimitriou said that this exhibition is another example of the purpose of the Onassis Cultural Center, which is «to engage the American public with the perennial humanistic nature of Hellenic culture and civilization. »

Ambassador Loukas Tsilas, Executive Director of the Onassis Cultural Center told The Greek News that it is of primary significance that that the American public will see Athens-Sparta, because «Americans will see objects that they can’t see unless they go to Greece, and more particularly, to Sparta.» One of the artifacts that could only be seen in the Archaeological Museum of Sparta is the “Leonidas” a marble statue of a hoplite from the late 5th century B.C.

The “Leonidas” sculpture, an Attic votive relief showing the Delian Trinity, also from the late 5th century B.C., and a rare Laconic clay kylix from 560 B.C. are among the exhibition highlights. But also there to take your breath away are some tiny objects of such immediacy that the viewer can almost feel that they once belonged to him, such as detailed brass votive figures less than a couple of inches high that could have been carried in the palm of a hand to be dedicated at an altar, or pieces of broken pottery with letters of the earliest alphabet looking as if they were scratched onto the surface just moments ago. Or the emotional finality of several round ritual ceramic plates (as yet unpublished finds whose significance is not completely understood) punctured in the center so that no one can ever use them again.

Ambassador Tsilas feels emotion and deep meaning in the spare simplicity of the Spartan grave stele on which is incised the simplest possible concept of commemoration, «He Fell in War», and nothing else, revealing what the Spartans respected most. «The Spartans were celebrating and commemorating their dead with just one word, and then there are the magnificent stelae of the Athenians, that were so ornate, so elaborate, so intricate, so glorious. Which one is more distinguished or which one is better founded, depends on human nature. That’s the main point: human nature dictates what is more correct and what is more beautiful. »

This is the story of two cities that fought together, grew up together, clashed, and perished together, said Tsilas, «two opposing approaches to life. One is the rich, productive, architectural, beauty-oriented, and commerce-oriented, society, and then we have Spartan society, austere, disciplined, and militaristic. Which is best? Nobody knows. The fact that these are two fundamental ways of seeing life is proven by the fact that we have, even today, and will have, in the future, these two approaches . . . .because they are inherent in human nature.»

Athens-Sparta strikes an emotional chord with everyone with whom The Greek news spoke, including the curator, Dr. Nikos Kaltsas, who said that it would be as impossible for him to name a «favourite» artifact in the show as it is for a parent to say which of his children he loves more. It is also difficult, if not impossible, to say that he prefers the life-view of either of the city-states over the other. «Some things about Athens impress me favorably and others unfavorably. I like it that personal freedom existed in Athens; the individual could express himself the way he wished, could operate, and take action, within the structure of the whole, which it appears, could not take place in Sparta. But our information about Sparta is not so clear because as Thucydides tells us, the Spartans were secretive about their society. »

Dr. Voulgarakis stressed to The Greek News that it is of great significance that two of the largest city states of ancient times are presented in New York, the world metropolis of today. «Athens and Sparta, two city-states that dominated the ancient world, had different values, different beliefs, different philosophies, and a different way of life, but each one gave very deep values and ideas to world civilization. in multicultural, multiethnic New York, which is in essence, the city of cities, this exhibition can give continuity from the past into the future, and this is ground-breaking.»

Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at the University of Cambridge, in his essay in the catalogue that accompanies and commemorates this show -- a gorgeous collectible of color plates and essays by thirteen eminent historians and archaeologists -- writes that Sparta «. . . .was a community that could not only conceive, but also put into practice, the idea and ideal of fighting and dying for a high moral concept -- that of Greekness and freedom.» Speaking with the Greek News, Mr. Papadimitriou also touched on that topic of “Greekness,” but in his own words, when The Greek News asked him to theorize about why Sparta and Athens developed such totally different ways of approaching life.

«Those two tribes were Greek. They shared a lot of things; they shared common traditions, a common language, gods, and art, as well. Even in Sparta a spark of art existed; even during its heaviest militaristic period there was art lurking beneath the surface, and that is not well-known.» Noting that «we don’t have anything about Sparta written by a Spartan; we know about Sparta thorough Athenian eyes,» Mr. Papadimitriou said, «One can theorize forever about why Athens evolved so differently from Sparta. I think its a historical paradox. »

The lesson to be learned, Mr. Papadimitriou believes, is that we should avoid stereotypes. «Everybody knows that history repeats itself as tragedy and farce, however, we have to realize -- and we must be warned -- that history doesn’t actually repeat itself . . . ever. And this exhibition shows that. »

In response to the hypothetical question: which exhibition held at the Onassis Center thus far would Aristotle Onassis have liked the most, Mr. Papadimitriou said, «definitely this exhibition, but also, last year’s From Byzantium to Modern Greece: Hellenic Art in Adversity, 1453-1830, because it was Greek art from the period of the Ottoman occupation, which was his own history, as his family was from Smyrna. I think he would have been interested in all of the exhibitions we have had here. »

ü Onassis Cultural Center, Olympic Tower, 645 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10022

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Source: Greek_news , Writing by Vicki J. Yiannias