“ANAVASIS” by Nakis Panagiotidis at the Hamidie Mosque

A site-specific installation inspired by Chios, mythology, and light, presented as part of the Chios Festival

Nakis Panagiotidis, one of the most significant contemporary Greek visual artists with an international career and reputation, presents his exhibition-installation ANAVASIS at the Hamidie Mosque in Chios, as part of the Chios Festival organized by the North Aegean Region. The exhibition will open on August 31st (19:00) in the presence of the artist. It is held under the auspices of the Italian and Swiss Embassies in Athens, in collaboration with the Tornabuoni Arte gallery, represented by Michele Casamonti. The Italian ambassador, Paolo Cuculi, will also attend the opening.

Curated by Dr. Fotis Papathanassiou, ANAVASIS marks, along with Panagiotidis’ recent retrospective at the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens, the artist’s dynamic return to Greece.

The Greek Arte Povera artist Nakis Panagiotidis settled in Switzerland in 1973 after completing his studies and has since divided his life and work between Bern and the Cycladic island of Serifos.

As curator Fotis Papathanassiou writes in the exhibition catalogue, the Greek-Swiss artist, whose works are featured in major contemporary art museums across Europe and the USA, “draws inspiration from the island of Chios. Water, which frequently occupies his work, the ancient material, Homer and mythology, and the square space of the Hamidie Mosque—as a white box—led him to a pentagon, or rather to four walls surrounding a central installation: the Anavasis! He uses simple, repetitive materials to create a symbolic language that seeks to provide answers, to hint at solutions, and to articulate the ineffable…”

“Anavasis—the title of the installation composed of five distinct works in continuous creative dialogue—acts as a catalyst for multiple aesthetic and philosophical interpretations. Nakis transformed the mosque into a true sanctuary of spiritual light—a ‘temple’ where the most contemporary art, through the simplest and most fragile materials, fulfills its true function: open, unprejudiced, universal. Open to anyone willing to encounter it. Nakis is not a shaman of art, like Beuys, but as a Greek, he becomes an hierophant of art.”

About the Artist

Nakis Panagiotidis was born in Athens in 1947. He studied architecture in Turin (1966) and fine arts in Rome (from 1967). In the spirit of the Arte Povera movement, Panagiotidis uses a wide variety of materials in his work, including stone, straw, lead, iron, copper, light bulbs, and more.

His art combines light and life, and is never static. He constantly explores opposites at the very moment of balance. He loves the present in which he lives, yet mythology and ancient art remain an integral part of his life. Panagiotidis is always a realist, starting from what he observes directly—because for him, only what lies before the eye matters.

Through his objects, photographic installations, paintings, and neon works, he reflects on the meaning, value, and truth of what he sees. The aim of his art is to illuminate, within the fleeting and accidental image, what exists eternally beyond the moment.

His works are held in major public and private collections worldwide, and he has presented solo exhibitions in key art capitals across Europe and the United States.