Exhibitions
ℹ️ The MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art's Inspire Project is an extended workshop for young creators, led by distinguished European artists, aiming to promote contemporary creativity, in the frame of a hyper-intensive workshop. This year's version of the event revolves around the theme of the Future, in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Futures Research and the Millennium Project.
INSPIRE PROJECT 2023: “Tension. Future scenarios and other stories”
Location: MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections (154 Egnatia Av-TIF-Helexpo premises)
Date: Till 28 September
ℹ️ Themes such as technology, science, memory and time, through the perspective of Greek and artists from abroad and organised in sections such as the flow of time, the new, the unknown, the imaginative, the dreamlike and the new materials are presented in the exhibition entitled "Future Tense. Works from the collections of MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art". The Future continues and functions as a key theme in this particular exhibition, alongside the Inspire Project 2023, which is exhibited in the same space, and gives the occasion for a re-investigation of works in the Museum's permanent collections. The exhibition approaches and highlights the artistic community's constant search for inspiration directed at the human invention of the concept of the Future.
“Future Tense. Works from the collections of MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art”
Location: MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections (154 Egnatia Av-TIF-Helexpo premises)
Date: Till 08 October
ℹ️ "My mission is to make sure that nobody can say: I didn't know." These words by prominent photojournalist Yannis Behrakis encapsulate both his passion for photojournalism and his journalistic ethics. The same words also epitomize his coverage of global crises and events over a period of thirty years, in places like Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Libya, Greece, Bosnia and Iran. This coverage of events that Behrakis was an eyewitness to are at the center of the exhibition "Eyewitness / Yannis Behrakis"
"Eyewitness / Yannis Behrakis"
Location: MOMus-Thessaloniki Museum of Photography (Warehouse Α’, Pier Α’, Thessaloniki port area)
Date: Till 08 October
ℹ️ What common thread could be linking Rosa Luxemburg, Jackson Pollock, Vasily Kandinsky, Leon Trotsky, Oscar Wilde and Yoko Ono with visual artists active in early 20th century Russia, such as Kazimir Malevich, Liubov Popova, Solomon Nikitin and Vladimir Tatlin? The answers to these and many more questions can be discovered by the public in the 50+1 stories presented in this exhibition. More than one hundred works of art and archival material from the Museum's renowned Costakis Collection will serve as the basis for the narratives and journeys presented to visitors, functioning in parallel and complementary to the stories that accompany them.
“50+1 Stories from the Costakis Collection”
Location: MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection (Moni Lazariston, Thessaloniki)
Date: Till 12 November
ℹ️ Can poetry inspire comics artists? Can references of love in poetry be translated into images? The exhibition under the title/verse “Let every river envy our mouths” presented with the collaboration of the Thessaloniki Comic Convention hosts the answers to the above questions as expressed by 26 artists, comic creators, illustrators and graphic designers.Text intertwines with image, desire becomes guilt-free, playful style and sexuality come to the fore, the body meets desire tenderly or provocatively. The wide spectrum of the comic unfolds in different ways and highlights the multiplicity of artistic expression.
“Let every river envy our mouths”
Location: MOMus-Experimental Center for the Arts (Warehouse Β1, Pier Α’, Thessaloniki port area)
Date: Till 03 September
ℹ️ Rare material of Mount Athos and Meteora that remained hidden for 95 years in a barrel at Princeton University, USA, is presented in the exhibition. The Mount Athos Center, in collaboration with the Department of Art and Archaeology of Princeton University, presents, for the first time in Greece, this exhibition of historic photographs from the expedition undertaken by three traveller-artists from Princeton to Mount Athos and the Meteora in 1929.
“No Woman’s Land From Princeton to Mount Athos and the Meteora in 1929”
Location: Mount Athos Center (Egnatia 109 str.)
Date: Till 16 September
ℹ️ On the occasion of the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne (24 July 1923) and in the context of the ongoing commemoration of the Asia Minor Catastrophe organised by the Municipality of Thessaloniki, the Thessaloniki History Centre presents the exhibition "METOIKESIA". The exhibition presents for the first time to the public the archive of the Thessaloniki History Centre, which includes the refugee registers and family books, as they were formed by the naturalization process carried out by the Municipality of Thessaloniki between 1923 and 1926. This legal act marked the transition from the status of refugee to that of Greek citizen and ensured refugees equal rights, a necessary condition for the systematisation of their full integration and rehabilitation.
“METOIKESIA-The contribution of the municipality of Thessaloniki to the naturalization and rehabilitation of the Asia Minor refugees through the archives of the Thessaloniki History Centre”
Location: Thessaloniki History Centre (Pl. Ippodromiou)
Date: Till 31 October
ℹ️ The Museum of Byzantine Culture of Thessaloniki in collaboration with the National Museum presents the temporary exhibition under the auspices of ICOM (International Council of Museums) entitled: "Phoenix & Agony". It is an artistic dialogue between authentic historical relics (coins, medals, dies, stamps of Otto, Kapodistrias and fighters of 21) and contemporary works. The artist Nikos Tsiyaparas presents 21 paintings, acrylic drawings on crates and a construction inspired by these unique treasures.
Temporary Exhibition “Phoenix - Agon”
Location: Museum of Byzantine Culture of Thessaloniki (2 Stratou Avenue)
Date: Till 13 September
ℹ️ As part of the exhibition institution entitled "New Acquisitions / New Approaches" , a prominent showcase in the museum's reception area welcomes visitors, introducing them to some of its most interesting, new and old, antiquities. Objects that are either newly acquired and presented for the first time to the scientific and general public or have been pulled from the storage shelves to be exhibited in the light of a new approach, such as after a restoration process, a new interpretation or new scientific data.
Temporary Exhibition “New entries / new approaches”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
Date: Till 30 November
ℹ️ The Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki and the Greek Community of Sicily "Trinakria" are co-organizing the periodical art exhibition entitled "Orphic Dialogues". The exhibition is inspired by the Papyrus of Derveni, the oldest book in Europe and one of the most important exhibits of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. The complex narrative of the two artists, Enzo Rovella and Constantinos Daga, unfolds its plot with references to the past and a renewed faith in the future, with the awareness of how imperfect and precarious is the spirit of the age we live in and how vulnerable is the integrity of the soul.
Temporary Exhibition “Orphic Dialogues”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
Date: Till 15 September
ℹ️ On October 27, 1962 the city celebrated the opening of its new archaeological museum. Now, exactly 60 years later, we are marking this important anniversary with an exhibition that highlights 60 emblematic moments in the history of Northern Greece’s oldest and largest archaeological museum. Emblematic exhibitions that left their indelible mark on the Museum, important excavations that altered the archaeological map of Macedonia, chance finds that rewrote history and more than 274 exhibits, mainly taken from our storerooms, together with audio-visual and other material tell small stories connecting not only the past with the present but also the city with the Museum, reflecting the events and the aura of each period.
Temporary Exhibition “60 years | 60 moments”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
Date: Till 31 October
ℹ️ The exhibition is presented for the first time at the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle with a large collection of photographs from the personal archive of Leonidas Manaki, son of Miltos Manakia, donated to the Foundation of the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle and Modern History of Macedonia (IMMA) by the Honorary Ambassador Mr. Alexandros Mallias. Yiannis and Miltos Manakia, originally from Abdella Grevenon, will travel through the countryside and the large urban centers of the Balkans, documenting not only the lives of the hardworking people, moments of relaxation and entertainment but also architectural landmarks, historical and social events that mark the changes of the first half of the 20th century.
“Yiannis and Miltos Manakia. People behind the lens”
Location: Museum of the Macedonian Struggle (23, Proxenou Koromila Str.)
Date: Till 31 December
ℹ️ The aim of the exhibition is to approach the traumatic memory of the departure of Greek Jews to the death camps through the photographic gaze. The leading conflictual historical event of the Holocaust is presented through the contemporary photographic depiction of martyred historical sites. The genocide is represented artistically and aesthetically through art to symbolically depict the crime committed in the Nazi camps. The exhibition confronts the visitor with "Oral History", as personal oral and written testimonies of Greek Jewish Holocaust survivors are used.
Photo exhibition of V. Tsiolis "Six days. The route of the Greek Jews"
Location: Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki (11, Agiou Mina Str.)
Date: Τill 31 August
ℹ️ Video Art Miden organizes and presents for the second time, a major online tribute to student and youth creation entitled The New New, in collaboration with 6 schools of fine arts and audiovisual arts in Greece.Video Art Miden gives again this year the opportunity to the public and the university-student community all over Greece to watch a panorama of recent student production full of fresh ideas, experimentation and youthful expression.
Video art “The New New 2023”
Location: Online at Video Art Miden’s youtube channel
Date: Till 30 September
Museums
ℹ️ The eleven rooms that comprise the Museum’s permanent exhibition opened gradually to the public from 1997 to early 2004. In a space of 3.430 square meters aspects of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine culture are presented, through the display of original artifacts, mainly from Thessaloniki, the most important city of the Empire after Constantinople, but also from the wider area of Macedonia. Using an accomplished and imaginative exhibition design, the display is organized into general themes and according to the established periods of Byzantine and post-Byzantine art and history. From a collection that numbers more than 46.000 artifacts, 3190 were selected for display, namely heirlooms and artworks dated between the 2nd and the 20th centuries.
ℹ️ Gallery 1: The Early Christian Church
Gallery 2: Early Christian City and Dwelling
Gallery 3: From the Elysian Fields to the Christian Paradise
Gallery 4: From Iconoclasm to the splendor of the Macedonian and the Komnenian dynasties
Gallery 5: The dynasties of Byzantine emperors
Gallery 6: The Byzantine Castle
Gallery 7: The twilight of Byzantium (1204-1453)
Gallery 8: Dori Papastratos Collection
Gallery 9: The Demetrios Oikonomoloulos Collection
Gallery 10: Byzantium after Byzantium: the Byzantine legacy in the years after the Fall, 1453-19th c.
Gallery 11: Discovering the past
Permanent exhibitions
Location: Museum of Byzantine Culture (2 Stratou Avenue)
ℹ️ Finds from prehistoric sites across Macedonia are present. The exhibition begins at an era prior to the appearance of modern humans, through the cast of the skull of the Ouranopithecus Macedoniensis, an early hominid, and moves on to the Palaeolithic era with the cast of the famous Petralona Skull.
Permanent exhibition “Prehistoric Macedonia”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
ℹ️ From Mount Athos to Mount Olympus in the Iron Age (1100 – 700 BC). In Macedonia, the period between 1100 and 700 BC, known as the Iron Age, is considered a "dark age". Nevertheless, this exhibition presents the latest excavation data that show the advent of important changes in the economic and social life of settlements at the time. The artefacts on display come from excavated sites around the Thermaic Gulf, from mount Athos to the Macedonian slopes of Olympus, such as Mende, Assiros, Anchialos, Kastanas, Krania of Olympus etc
Permanent exhibition “Towards the birth of cities”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
ℹ️ From the foundation of the Macedonian kingdom in the 7th c. BC to the Late Antiquity. The exhibition presents aspects of life of the Macedonians from the creation of the independent Macedonian kingdom to the late Roman Imperial era, when Macedonia was a province of the Roman Empire. The artefacts on display come from Thessaloniki as well as a multitude of other sites across Macedonia. They cover a chronological framework of 1100 years and each one characterises its own era not only as works of exceptional artistic value but also as living testimonies of the history and culture of Macedonia.
Permanent exhibition “In Macedonian from the 7th BC until the Late Antiquity”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
ℹ️ The history of ancient Thessaloniki, through its antiquities and monuments. Unknown aspects of the history of Thessaloniki are highlighted through the presentation of the most important monuments and selected artefacts, displaying its most unique characteristics, many of which can be traced to this day. The traditional accompanying material and rich texts are reinforced by innovative multimedia applications, such as a short film about ancient Thessaloniki and touch screens with digital tours through the modern city grid to famous or lesser known monuments of the city.
Permanent exhibition “Thessaloniki the Metropolis of Macedonia”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
ℹ️ The largest collection of gold wreaths and other precious finds from the cemeteries of Macedonia. During antiquity, Macedonia was famous for its metal sources, whose abundance was the reason for the creation of artistic masterpieces since a very early period as well as for its financial strength. River gold was widely used, such as from the river Echedorus (modern-day Gallikos), along with ores on mountains such as Pangaion or Dysoron.
Permanent exhibition “The gold of Macedon”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
ℹ️ An open-air exhibition inviting you to take a stroll around the cemeteries and residences of the ancient city. The antiquities presented here date from the 2nd to the 4th c. AD, an era of great prosperity for Thessaloniki. The first part of the exhbition presents sarcophagi and altars from the city's cemeteries. These burial monuments were either imported or locally made and were located along the main roads or placed within privately-owned enclosures, known as topoi, with other monuments, stelae or statues. The second part of the exhibition shows a reconstructed rich urban house of Thessaloniki during the Roman Imperial era.
Permanent exhibition “Field, house, garden, grave”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
ℹ️ Open-air exhibition on the stone monuments and the memory of the city. Most items of this exhibition date from the 1st to the 7th c. AD, and few dating to later periods. This exhibition serves as a reminder that Archaeology can only gather few sherds, scattered stones of our collective memory from our past heritage.
Permanent exhibition “Memory in stone”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
ℹ️ An internationally unique exhibition of interactive systems. The exhibition draws inspiration from the history and culture of ancient Macedonia. This exhibition differs from a conventional one, as the new technologies employed allow visitors to access unique artefacts, archaeological sites and monuments, offering a new interactive experience that combines information and learning through playing. Hence, visitors can explore digital representations of ancient artefacts, travel in time and space and discover, in a simple and modern way, aspects of the history and archaeology of ancient Macedonia, through its virtual image.
Permanent exhibition “Macedonia. From fragments to pixels”
Location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (6 Manoli Andronikou Str.)
ℹ️ MOMus–Museum of Modern Art–Costakis Collection was founded in 1997 and formed by a large part of the famous Costakis Collection. There are over a hundred works of art on display in the permanent exhibition, by artists such as Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Alexander Rodchenko, Solomon Nikritin, Ivan Kliun, Gustav Klutsis, Ilya Chashnik, K. Ender, Aleksandr Drevin, I. Kudriashev, A. Sofronova, and K. Vialov. They are the best works in the collection and refer to important personages, avant-garde movements and artistic tendencies, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and constructions.
Permanent collection “Costakis Collection”
Location: MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection (Moni Lazariston, Thessaloniki)
ℹ️ MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art- Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections (formerly: the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art) is charged with promoting contemporary art and the study of art movements in Greece and abroad through the preservation and promotion of its achievements, mostly in the visual arts. It manages the Iolas, Xydis and Apergis collections, all collections and contemporary artworks of the Foundation of the “Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art”, the contemporary art collections of the State Museum of Contemporary Art and the collection of sculptures of the Foundation “Alex Mylona Museum of Contemporary Art”.
Permanent collections “Iolas, Xydis and Apergis Collections”
Location: MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections (154 Egnatia Av-TIF-Helexpo premises)
ℹ️ The mission of MOMus-Thessaloniki Museum of Photography is the study and promotion of photography and the cultivation, familiarization and education of the public in contemporary and earlier trends of the art. Its archives and collection comprise approximately 90.000 photo documents from 1890-2015, including the archives of Yiannis Stylianou, Socrates Iordanidis and Dimitris Letsios. The institution also functions as a depository for the Greek part of the Fred Boissonnas archive.
Permanent collections “Archives of Yiannis Stylianou, Socrates Iordanidis, Dimitris Letsios and Fred Boissonnas”
Location: MOMus-Thessaloniki Museum of Photography Warehouse A, Pier A,Thessaloniki port area)
ℹ️ The exhibition is designed to familiarise the public with the water-powered machines that replaced the hand tools (hand mills, handsaws, mallets) used for centuries to grind grain, saw wood and finish cloth. It attempts to demonstrate the inventive genius that lay behind these water-powered machines, which were devised to reduce the heavy burden of manual labour. It also tries to explain the social and economic conditions that favoured their widespread adoption and illustrate the dynamics of the new technologies: technology, in other words, is here approached through its human dimension. Finally, the visitor can follow the application of the principles underlying the working of these wooden machines in a modern internal combustion engine, and understand their importance to the development of technology.
Permanent exhibition “At the Watermills of Macedonia and Thrace: Gristmills, Sawmills, Fulling Mills, Cloth-finishing Waterfalls in Traditional Society”
Location: Folklife & Ethnological Museum of Macedonia & Thrace (68 Vasilissis Olga Str.)
ℹ️ The exhibition presents 55 costumes from Macedonia and Thrace and neighboring areas, historically confirmed extensions of Greece's northerly territories (Northern Macedonia, Eastern Thrace, Eastern Rumelia, the Black Sea littoral and Asia Minor) that were inhabited by cohesive substantial communities conscious of their origin, plus some traditional masquerade costumes. Traditional costumes are those worn in the pre-industrial age. In Macedonia and in Thrace this period lasted until the 1950s.
Permanent exhibition “Macedonia-Thrace: Traditional Costumes, 1860-1960”
Location: Folklife & Ethnological Museum of Macedonia & Thrace (68 Vasilissis Olga Str.)
ℹ️ The exhibition on ancient Greek technology aims to highlight an aspect of ancient Greek culture that has been researched and promoted far less than its philosophy, art, politics, military history, religion and other aspects.The exhibition presents samples of technological elements and achievements of ancient Greece, with dummies made based on information from written sources. These exhibits from the fields of everyday life, construction, engineering, shipbuilding, war, telecommunications, measuring instruments, automation and others, reflect the techniques and the cultural context in which they appeared, capturing the role and the importance of technology in the development of ancient Greek and world culture.
Permanent exhibition “Ancient Greek Technology”
Location: Noesis (6th km. Thessaloniki - Thermi)
ℹ️ The Technopark is a place of interaction. The visitor actively participates, stars and learns while having fun. The history of the Technopark and its interactive exhibits begins at the Technical Museum of Thessaloniki in 1991. Since then the exhibition has been a permanent part of the Museum’s activities. The response of the visitors during the multi-year presence of the interactive exhibits in the Museum was enthusiastic. Today, the Technopark includes an area of 450m2, 40 exhibits, which refer to a variety of scientific topics, such as electricity, magnetism, optics, engineering, etc.
The Technopark Hands-on Area
Location: Noesis (6th km. Thessaloniki - Thermi)
ℹ️ Beauty, performance, speed, economy, mass production, but also specialized manufacturing, meet at the Car Show, at the Noesis facilities. Vehicles of historical, collectible and educational interest, four-wheeled as well as two-wheeled "ladies", from the 20s to the recent past, mentally transport visitors to other eras, highlighting the evolution of motoring in a unique way. Learn about engineering trends, developments in exterior and interior design, and understand how economic, social and technological changes have influenced the evolution of the automobile.
Transportation Technology
Location: Noesis (6th km. Thessaloniki - Thermi)
ℹ️ The collection of the Municipal Gallery numbers approximately 3,000 works, from the last 150 years, of paintings, sculptures, engravings, drawings and photographs, and continues to evolve. It includes artworks by important representatives of Modern Greek Art such as: Nikos Eggonopoulos, Spyros Papaloukas, George Gounaropoulos, Epaminondas Thomopoulos, Sarantis Karavouzis, Nikos Kessanlis, George Lazogkas, Loukas Venetoulias, Kostas Lachas, Kostas Loustas, Mentis Bonstatzoglou, Giorgos Paralis, Nikos- Gavriil Pentzikis, Nikos Sahinis, Yiannis Svoronos, Giorgos Sikeliotis, Gerasimos Steris, Dimitris Tantanozis et al.
Municipal Art Gallery of Thessaloniki - Vila Bianca
Location: 182 Vassilisis Olgas Str.
ℹ️ The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki keeps the following collections: Tombstones from the dismantled Jewish Cemetery, marble inscriptions and ornaments from synagogues demolished by the German occupation authorities, religious objects, old and rare books in Hebrew, family heirlooms, ketubot, public and private letters dated WWII, apparel (19th and 20th centuries), fabrics, tablecloths, books and bank deposit booklets (until 1940). The museum, also, maintains the only existing collection of pre-war family and school photographs, which was formed by donations. It is noteworthy that expatriate Jews in Thessaloniki from all over the world or visitors of the museum donate objects, family heirlooms, family letters, documents of their ancestors, etc., with the belief that their donation acquire the right place in the history of the past.
Permanent exhibition - Jewish Museum
Location: Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki (11, Agiou Mina Str.)
ℹ️ The war museum of Thessaloniki consists of nine permanent collections with more than 10,000 relics from the country's latest and modern war history. The museum's exhibits include, among other things, collections of uniforms and weapons of the Greek and foreign armed forces, paintings and maps covering the history of Greece's war from the revolution of 1821 to the involvement in Cyprus in 1974. The exhibition space also includes most complete collection of orders of excellence and military medals in Greece.
The Technopark Hands-on Area Permanent collection - Thessaloniki War Museum
Location: 4 Grigoriou Lampraki Str.
Events
ℹ️ Oraeokastro: Cultural Summer 2023
Pontian festival with Gavrilos Sidiropoulos in cooperation with the Cultural Association "Digenis"
Location: Primary School of Melissochori (Thessaloniki-Drimos District Road 9)
Date: 25 August, 21:00
Thessaloniki Tango Party 2023
Location: 24 August, 21:00, Alexander the Great Statue, Seafront
25 & 26 August, 21:00, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki
Summer outdoor cinemas