The Antonios E. Komninos Foundation presents, for the first time in Syros at the Cyclades Art Gallery, the exhibition “Theodoros Papagiannis: Know Thyself,” in collaboration with the Municipality of Syros-Ermoupoli and the artist. The exhibition will be inaugurated on Saturday, June 20, at 8:00 p.m., by the Minister of Tourism, Ms. Olga Kefalogianni.

Precious sculptures and representative installations by the acclaimed Epirote sculptor Theodoros Papagiannis will reveal significant aspects of his multifaceted work, in which matter is transformed into a vessel of memory and meaning. These include both well-known and lesser-known works, which spark a meaningful dialogue with history, collective experience, and lived experiences, tracing his long artistic journey from Elliniko in Ioannina to Athens and the Athens School of Fine Arts, where he taught as a professor of sculpture for four decades until 2009.

The exhibition is accompanied by a multi-page catalog, with a foreword by His Excellency the President of the Republic, Mr. Konstantinos Tasoulas, who notes, among other things: “The sculptural journey of Theodoros Papagiannis is multifaceted, multifaceted, and multifaceted. He draws from our heritage and engages in a fruitful dialogue with modernism, blending tradition and modernity, folk art and intellectualism, representation and abstraction. He approaches historical experience and social reality with balanced respect, daily necessity and living memory, and transforms them into forms that connect the earthly with the spiritual, persisting in envisioning a mythical experience of flight and ascension… And it is true. However, his deep roots do not merely preserve mythical memory, but maintain, in his work, the undivided continuity of time as the most recent past. The past of a harsh and authentic place, his birthplace, Epirus, and his village, Elliniko in Ioannina, which he transformed into an open-air sculpture gallery and gifted with a unique museum, housing it in his abandoned school.”

Following are greetings and remarks by Mr. Antonis Komninos, president of the foundation bearing his name; Mr. Alexandros Athanasiou, Mayor of Syros-Ermoupoli; Iphigenia Botzaki, museologist and program director of the Antonis E. Komninos Foundation, the late Angelos Delivorias, Marina Lambraki-Plaka, and Yannis Pappas, and the exhibition curator, art theorist and critic Takis Mavrotas, who emphasizes, among other things, in his text: Theodoros Papagiannis: The sculptor who embraced art as a code of life “His artistic truth is rooted in the tradition of Epirus and in his quest to connect the sense of proportion from classical antiquity with the modern era. Equipped with the skills of a well-trained sculptor, a connoisseur of ancient Greek sculpture and the explorations of modern and contemporary art, he returned to Greece from Paris in 1982 to pursue his own path. This is a body of work based on structural necessity, aesthetic sufficiency, expressive simplicity, and its defining relationship with light….. The enduring and the eternal have inspired Papagiannis, since his teenage years, to recognize the power of art in creating his anthropocentric sculptures, which embody the timeless experience of human destiny, joy, and sorrow. Unfazed and unceasingly, he embraces nature, people, and history. He stands motionless, facing himself, seeking his own answers to the mystery of the world. A world of solid sculptural creations, inner vitality, and exceptional technique. Through his statues, busts, and monumental compositions, he has intervened, salvifically and harmoniously, in the surrounding natural space, adhering to realistic representations…. Monumental sculptures, whether standing beside Lake Ioannina or in the shadow of the Elliniko Mountains, have found their place in the environment and soothed his anxiety about the human condition. His deeply human-centered work, featuring tender female figures lying down or standing, mothers with children, and couples reveals his worldview through dense modeling and closed, clean forms with rhythmic relationships between planes, which are permeated by light. Volume, design, and composition preoccupy him intensely, as does the interweaving of plastic arts with geometry.”

Theodoros Papagiannis was born in Elliniko, Ioannina, in 1942. In 2009, he founded the “Theodoros Papagiannis” Museum of Contemporary Art there. He has held 55 solo exhibitions and has participated in numerous group shows. His monumental sculptures are found in museums, public spaces, and private collections in Greece and abroad, and he has been honored with many awards and distinctions.

Organized by: Antonios E.Komninos Foundation

Curated by: Takis Mavrotas

Duration: 20 June to 26 July 2026

Opening : Saturday 20 June, 20:00

Cyclades Municipal Art Gallery, Syros

Opening hours: 

Monday-Sunday 11:00-13:00 and 17:30-22:00 / Tuesday and Wednesday (evening)

Project photos: Haris Papadimitrakopoulos, Odysseas Vacharidis