“Borrowed time. The toil of the artist through the work of Yannis Pappas“. The imaginative title of the exhibition hosted at the Benaki Museum, 138 Pireos Str., refers to the time the artist needs to “borrow” in order to create a work that will be timeless and important.

The exhibition focuses precisely on the artist’s workshop, “in the kitchen”, and on the research, study, mental and physical effort he puts in to reach the completion of his work. It illuminates the unseen side of sculpture. It focuses on the preparatory stages of a finished work, namely the two- and three-dimensional sketch, the scaffolding, the mould, the template. All of this spiritual and physical longing, as well as the artist’s relationship with time, was continuously at the core of Yannis Pappas’ work, as one can see from his thousands of drawings, sculptures and paintings.

In order to reveal the raw and material reality of sculpture, hundreds of works from the Yannis Pappas Lab of the Benaki Museum, where the sculptor worked for half a century, will be exhibited. These works are evidence of the tireless dedication to art of one of the most important contemporary Greek sculptors, Yannis Pappas (1913-2005).The bronze equestrian statue of Alexander the Great, which was transferred from the Yannis Pappas Lab and is one of the two casts of this sculpture, will be on display in the atrium of the Benaki Museum / 138 Pireos Str. during the exhibition.

Some of the artist’s emblematic works in public spaces in Athens are:

• The statue of Eleftherios Venizelos (brass, 4 m high, Eleftherias Park, 1969).
• The statue of Eleftherios Venizelos (marble, 3.5 m high, courtyard of the Greek Parliament, 1990).
• The statue of General Makriyannis (brass, 2 m high, Dionysiou Areopagitou & Byronos, 1996).
• The statue of Odysseas Elytis (brass, Dexamenis Square, 1997)
• The statue of Charilaos Trikoupis (marble, 3.45 m high, courtyard of the Greek Parliament, created in 1998 and placed in 2000).

The Yannis Pappas Lab

The two-storey building of the interwar period in the Zografou area, which houses the Yannis Pappas Laboratory, was the residence of the family of the great Greek artist until the 1960s. In 2006 it was offered to the Benaki Museum by his son, Alekos Pappas, with the main aim of keeping the artist’s works in their natural environment.

The workshop continues to be a workplace for students of the School of Fine Arts, while it also functions as a preparatory workshop for preparatory courses in drawing, colour and composition for entrance examinations to the Schools of Fine Arts, as well as for students of all ages and levels of progress.

Yannis Pappas Laboratory| Anakreontos 38, 157 72, Zografou| Days& opening hours: Tuesday, Friday, Sunday 10:00-14:00 | Τ. 2107773946, 6972603137,| [email protected]

Exhibition Duration: 20.02.2025–27.07.202

Exhibition Curator: Thodoris Bargiotas (head of the Yannis Pappas Laboratory)