A FOREST OF SCULPTURES

40 leading sculptors in Athens

Press release

On Wednesday, the 6th of February 2008, the contemporary art exhibition “A Forest of Sculpture” opens at the Athinais cultural centre. The exhibition presents the world-known collection of Simor Spierer from the Hessiches Landmuseum in Darmstadt-Germany which is comprised by artworks of established artists of modern and contemporary art. This is the first time that this collection travels abroad. The exhibition will be inaugurated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mrs Dora Bakoyiannis.
The exhibition starts with the collector’s portrait by Andy Warhol and continues with a series of remarkable sculptures which give the impression of a forest. The artists Armitage, Arp, Bill, Bourgeois, Brancusi, Cardenas, Caro, Cesar, Cragg, Croissant, Ernst, Fernagu, Fontana, Giacometti, Gonzalez, Herpworth, Kito, Lobo, Masson, Melotti, Moore, Noguchi, Pan, Penalba, Perrot, Petters, Pomodoro, De Pury, Reggiani, Richier, Rohm, Romeda, Spoerri, Stankiewicz, Trubbiani, Turnbull, Uecker, Williams and the Greeks Takis and Avramidis provide a dynamic dialogue with their representative works. All trends of modern and contemporary sculpture are represented in this exhibition: real co-exists with imaginative and deliberate with accidental.

The curator, Takis Mavrotas notes in the exhibition catalogue “The Spierer collection is a forest of sculpture symbols which create a unique ambiance in which the artists secretly mark the unspoken… The power of imagination and the speed of reflection signal the artists’ evolutionary adventure. Spierer’s Forest of Sculpture reveals the imaginative museum of a passionate and inspired collector. His spirit and soul are reflected in the choice and co-existence of all these different artists with their autonomous plastic text.”
Simon Spierer (1926-2005) was a world-known tobacconist who dedicated his life to art. His words “I cannot imagine life without art” explains the way in which he experienced his existence.
He was born in Trieste, from an Austrian-Hungarian Jewish family, He lost his father at a very early age and in 1938, his mother Vittoria and his sister where captured and imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen, where they stayed until the end of the second world war. In 1943, he immigrates with his grandmother in Switzerland where he concludes his higher education. After finishing his studies, he starts working at his father business, trained in the international tobacco trade at the States and South Africa. In the 50s’ he starts collecting and buying paintings and artworks while he is working as tobacconist in Hamburg and, at the same time, at a gallery in Geneva. At the beginning of the 60s’ he opens his first art gallery in Geneva.

In 1972, he opens a new art gallery in Geneva with his wife Marie-Louise Jeanneret, an Italian art gallerist herself. They also found the Centre of Contemporary Art Experiment in Βoissano in Italy, where they invite artists. There, Spierer, himself spends his holidays with his family and invites famous artists, such as Andy Warhol. In the 80s’, he starts collecting sculptures and conceives the idea of the “Forest”. From all the art-related activities, his collection becomes his passion. In 2004 he donates his collection to the Hessiches Landmuseum in Darmstadt, where it is presented for the time.

Exhibition Curator: Takis Mavrotas
Duration of the exhibition: 7/2/-14/4 2008
Gold Sponsor: COSMOTE
Silver Sponsor: KINTEC
Sponsors: CLUB HOTEL CASINO LOUTRAKI, JOHNNIE WALKER GREEN LABEL, ΑΥΡΑ, SONY