Art Athina, The International Art Fair of Athens returns with a record number of exhibitors from Greece and abroad and an enriched artistic program.

The biggest annual cultural event of Greece, held under the auspices of the H. E. The President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou, has reached institutional prominence and is set to be presented 17–19 September 2022 at Zappeion Mansion, welcoming thousands of visitors.

Art Athina is organized by the Hellenic Art Galleries Association and is delivered since 2017 under the artistic direction of Stamatia Dimitrakopoulos. Art Athina 2022 will present an all encompassing program, featuring 81 galleries from Greece and abroad, as well as a parallel artistic program divided in 14 sections covering a wide range of creative approaches, from video, NFT, design, live talks and architecture.

The program of exhibitors is composed by the sections Main, Highlights, Feature and Projects. The Main section of the fair consists of galleries spread in the central spaces of Zappeion Mansion. Highlights is composed of international galleries invited by the artistic director, Stamatia Dimitrakopoulos. The section Feature will present galleries from abroad selected by independent curator, Kate Caruso, based in Los Angeles. While the section Projects will present booths by independent art spaces.

The parallel artistic program consists of the section Design presenting Greek and international participants. Live Talks & Art Athina Podcast will be hosting discussions with guest artists, museum directors and established curators. The section Film & New Media Space presents a series of screenings open to the public, organised in collaboration with the video and NFT online platform Daata. Kids Educational Program designed by the non-profit international contemporary art and culture charity, KROMA, for children over the age of six, teenagers and their carers.

The section Art Athina All-Year Round, involves activities and collaborations that take place in the duration of the year, it includes the Art Athina Residency Program in which international artists, represented by galleries exhibiting in the Feature and Highlights sections, are invited to stay in Athens for 30 days and create works to be exhibited at Zappeion. For 2022 Art Athina collaborates with the distinguished hotel chain, Brown Hotels, in order to deliver the residency program. The Art Athina Educational Program, held for the fifth year with the participation of students from Athens and Thessaloniki, is directed for the 3rd year by curator Daphne Politi and supported by the A.C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation and the Make Or Break initiative. The Art Athina Podcast available on Spotify.

Art Athina as an institution that closely follows the developments in the field of visual arts, apart from the stable themes that make up its programme, this year Art Athina is also incorporating new categories that broaden the field of its interests, but also listen to the changes brought about by innovation in the field of visual arts.

For the first time, in this context, Art Athina is hosting an exhibition of works that are exclusively NFT, while through the Art Athina Pavilions section, presented for the first time in the context of the fair, it creates links between the world of contemporary art with that of architecture. In addition, the Art Athina Prize for a new artist is established from this year in collaboration with MOMus-Museum Alex Mylonas in Athens.

After a 2-year hiatus, Art Athina takes place again at its permanent venue at Zappeion Mansion. In 2020 and 2021 Art Athina continued its program digitally, through the platform Art Athina Virtual, while in 2021 it introduced a hybrid combining the digital presentations of booths with a physical exhibition at the lobby of the King George Hotel, in Syntagma Square.
Art Athina is organised by the Hellenic Art Gallery Association and produced by Be Best production company.

It is supported by the European Regional Development Fund within the framework of the Regional Operational Programme “Attika” 2014-2020.