PRESENTATION: In a Bright Green Field

“In a Bright Green Field” is the third in a series of collaborative exhibitions highlighting the work of contemporary Greek and Cypriot artists. Theexhibition features the work of twenty-nine young artists exploring possible futures where renewed relationships with the natural world might emerge and expansive approaches to community may flourish. Gathering artists working across a variety of mediums,

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: DESTE Foundation / New Museum Archive

“In a Bright Green Field” is an ambitious and expansive exhibition that brings together a dynamic constellation of emerging artists working across Athens, Nicosia, and various cultural geographies throughout Europe. Co-organized by the New Museum (New York) and the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art (Athens), in partnership with the Benaki Museum, this exhibition is the latest chapter in an ongoing collaboration among institutions committed to foregrounding urgent contemporary artistic practices in dialogue with complex historical and geopolitical contexts. Set against the backdrop of a region shaped by layered histories, political transitions, and social transformations, “In a Bright Green Field” presents a timely survey of artists whose work emerges from—and actively engages with—the specificity of place. Many of these artists draw directly from the historical, environmental, and cultural tapestries of Greece and Cyprus, mining local narratives as generative material for reflecting on the broader, interconnected challenges of our time. Through a variety of mediums and conceptual strategies, they offer richly textured responses to questions of belonging, resource distribution, ecological precarity, and the shifting nature of collective life. The exhibition foregrounds practices that interrogate the accelerated transformation of both labor and landscape under the pressures of global capitalism and technological advancement. These works grapple with the entangled effects of automation, migration, climate change, and urbanization—phenomena that are often experienced most acutely at the local level, yet reverberate globally. Rather than presenting these changes as fixed or unidirectional, the artists in In a Bright Green Field often explore the possibility of resistance, adaptation, and reinvention through the lens of art-making. Spanning disciplines and methodologies, the works on view move fluidly between lyrical abstraction and research-based inquiry, between personal storytelling and collective action. The exhibition includes painting, sculpture, video, sound, installation, and performance—media that serve not only as formal expressions but as tools for social engagement and imaginative world-building. Themes such as the poetics of infrastructure, rural and pastoral science-fiction, urban animism, and decentralized modes of authorship recur throughout the exhibition, inviting viewers to consider how art can function as both critique and proposition. Crucially, “In a Bright Green Field” positions artistic practice as a site of experimentation where new forms of community, ecology, and temporality can be envisioned. Many of the artists represented here engage in collaborative and participatory processes, working with local groups, knowledge systems, and vernacular traditions. In doing so, they challenge conventional notions of authorship and spectatorship, proposing more porous, inclusive, and reciprocal models of cultural production. This exhibition follows in the footsteps of “The Equilibrists” (2016) and “The Same River Twice” (2019), two prior collaborations between the New Museum and the DESTE Foundation, also presented in partnership with the Benaki Museum. Each of these exhibitions has offered a platform for examining the evolving landscape of contemporary art in Greece and its diasporas, situating regional practices within broader international discourses. Over the past four decades, both the New Museum and the DESTE Foundation have consistently championed experimental, socially responsive, and critically engaged work—missions that find powerful resonance in the vision of the Benaki Museum. Known for its unique role as a historical institution with a vital contemporary program, the Benaki continues to bridge past and present, serving as a space where memory, heritage, and innovation coalesce. In this spirit, “In a Bright Green Field” is not merely an exhibition—it is a living inquiry into how art can navigate and illuminate the complexities of the present while cultivating the seeds of possible futures. By drawing attention to the generative intersections between local experience and global condition, it invites us to consider how the margins of Europe might in fact offer fertile ground for reimagining the center—not just geographically, but conceptually, socially, and ecologically.

Participating Artists: Niki Analyti, Raissa Angeli, Ileana Arnaoutou, Vera Chotzoglou, Anna Housiada, Danae Io, Byron Kalomamas, Konstanza Kapsali, Ismene King, Kyriakos Kyriakides, Latent Community ( Ionian Bisai & Sotiris Tsiganos), Ioanna Limniou, Maria Louizou, Marietta Mavrokordatou, Polina Miliou, Eleni Odysseos, Nefeli Papadimouli, Theodoulos Polyviou, Sofia Rozaki, Despina Sanida Crezia, David Sampethai, Marios Stamatis, The Post Collective (Mirra Markhaëva & Elli Vassalou), Theo Triantafyllidis, Maria Toumazou, Marina Xenofontos, Damianos Zisimou

Photo: Konstanza Kapsali, Elsa & Olga, 2023 (still), Photo: Deste Foundation / New Museum Archive

Info: Curator: Gary Carrion-Murayari, Benaki Museum, Pireos 138, Athens, Greece, Duration: 11/6-13/9/2025, Days & Hours: Thu & Sun 10:00-18:00, Fri-Sat 11:00-22:00 (12/6-31/7 & 1-13/9), In August only by appointment (T +30 210 275 8490), www.benaki.org/