Inna Orlik: The Permanent Collection
2026-05-23 12:00 - 18:00, 2026-05-24 12:00 - 18:00, 2026-05-25 12:00 - 18:00, 2026-05-26 12:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Athens) | Orlik Gallery, 3 Palaiologou Benizelou, Athens, 105 56, Greece
Orlik Gallery invites the This is Athens City Festival audience to a distinctive encounter with the visual universe of Inna Orlik. This exhibition brings to the fore a world where contemporary painting enters into a dialogue with mythology, nature, and the human experience, creating an environment rich in symbolism and layers of interpretation.

Defined by bold colours, complex textures, and a singular painterly language, Orlik’s works move between the visible and the suggestive, the personal and the collective. The artist transforms the canvas into a space for narrative and exploration, inviting the viewer to discover forms, symbols, and underlying connections. It is an exhibition tailored for those seeking not only aesthetic intensity in contemporary art but also a substantial, resonant depth.

First Cemetery of Athens: An Open-Air Sculpture Gallery II
2026-05-23 17:00 - 19:00 | First Cemetery of Athens, Logginou 3, Athens, Athens, 116 36, Greece
While Halepas’s “Sleeping Maiden” is undoubtedly the most iconic sculpture in Athens’ First Cemetery, the beauty of this open-air museum goes far beyond its famous headline acts.

As part of the This is Athens City Festival 2026, archaeologist and guide Michalis Giohalas invites us to step off the main path. We’ll be heading up the winding, uphill trails to discover a lesser-known but equally breathtaking side of Modern Greek sculpture. Far from the usual tourist spots, you’ll encounter imposing mausoleums and monuments where a grand passion for legacy meets a crushing, powerful silence.

In this unique space, the mortal world seems to hold a quiet conversation with the immortal. This tour shines a light on hidden masterpieces and the moving human stories behind them, offering a deeply personal look at the artistic and historical heritage of Athens.

Meeting Point: Main Entrance of the First Cemetery of Athens (at the end of Anapafseos Street).

This activity is only available in Greek.

Yoga Sessions
2026-05-23 18:30 - 20:30 | Rizari Park, Rizari 5, Athens, Athens, 106 76, Greece
Rizari Park is transforming into the quietest, yet most radiant, spot in the city. Think of it as a lush green sanctuary right in the heart of Athens, where time seems to slow down and the city’s daily hum just fades away behind the trees.

As part of the This is Athens City Festival, our Yoga Sessions are back, inviting you to roll out your mat on the grass and get in sync with your body and breath. Practising under the shade of the trees with the open sky above is a total game-changer, it’s a chance to reconnect with yourself and the city in a whole new way.

We’ve got some fantastic instructors on hand to guide everyone from total beginners to seasoned yogis through a harmonious flow focused on balance, focus, and finding that inner alignment. Every inhale brings a fresh burst of energy, and every exhale lets go of the day’s tension.

It’s that lovely moment when Athens reveals its serene side—a gentle reminder that wellbeing isn’t a luxury, it’s a rhythm we can all find together.

This activity is only available in Greek.

Canvas Bag Meets Vintage Flair
2026-05-24 11:00 - 13:30 | National Historical Museum, Stadiou 13, Athens, Athens, 105 61, Greece
How were traditional costumes made, and what secrets are hidden within their vibrant colours, intricate patterns, and fine details?

The National Historical Museum invites the younger friends of the This is Athens City Festival 2026 to an interactive session that brings folk tradition to life creatively and delightfully. The journey begins with a guided exploration of the Museum’s Folk Collection, where children will get up close to the richness of Greek attire, discovering the materials, techniques, and sheer craftsmanship that went into every handmade piece. But the experience doesn’t end with looking. Transitioning from observation to creation, and under the expert guidance of the museum curators, children will try their hand at the traditional block printing technique to decorate their very own canvas tote bag. By the end of the session, folk art is no longer just a museum exhibit, but their personal masterpiece to carry home. This is a brilliant opportunity for children to connect history with imagination and discover the past through their own hands.

This activity is only available in Greek.

A Walk through Rizokastro & Anafiotika
2026-05-24 17:00 - 19:00 | Acropolis Metro Station, Makrygianni 9, Athens, Athens, 117 42, Greece
Rizokastro and Anafiotika, two of the most enchanting and singular corners of Athens, become the backdrop for a journey that weaves together history, memory, and the inexhaustible charm of Plaka. Archaeologist and guide Michalis Giohalas invites us on a route that goes far beyond a typical tour; it is a quest for Athenian identity where the layers of time remain vividly visible.

Guided by surviving monuments, the ghosts of lost buildings, and the hidden details we usually overlook, this walk attempts to reconstruct a different Athens, but certainly not a lost one. Even those who believe they know Plaka inside out will have the chance to see it through a fresh lens where myth, legend, and topography collide. It is an experience that bridges academic insight with the evocative, nostalgic power of our capital’s most authentic neighbourhood.

Meeting Point: Acropolis Metro Station, Makriyianni exit.

This activity is only available in Greek.

NO MOTTO
2026-05-24 18:00 - 22:00, 2026-05-25 18:00 - 21:00, 2026-05-26 18:00 - 21:00 | Mosaico Fine Art Studio, Kesarias 18-20, Athens, Athens, 115 27, Greece
As part of the This is Athens City Festival 2026, contemporary art finds its voice in “NO MOTTO”, featuring the work of Markos Ntemkas and curated by Dr. Eva Kekou. This presentation of conceptual works invites the public on an aesthetic and philosophical journey exploring the boundaries of imagery, meaning, and artistic identity. Eschewing easy definitions or predetermined conclusions, the exhibition carves out a space for observation and personal interpretation.

The central axis here is self-reflexivity: the way in which art can turn inward to examine its own nature, function, and presence. In “NO MOTTO”, form and content exist in a constant dialogue, creating a field of contemplation that offers no ready-made answers, but instead proposes a more substantial way of seeing. This is an exhibition for those who appreciate a contemporary visual language that challenges, questions, and leaves room for a second thought.

Tilda Swinton: Ongoing
2026-05-24 18:00 - 23:00 | Onassis Ready, 2 Strati Tsirka, Ag. Ioannis Rentis, 182 33, Greece
Marking its fifth year with a great collaboration with Onassis Stegi, we offer an encounter with one of the season’s most keenly discussed artistic propositions. At its centre is Tilda Swinton, a figure who has long moved with deliberate, almost defiant ease between cinema, fashion, and the visual arts, each appearance less a performance than a considered cultural gesture.

The exhibition Ongoing, presented at the recently inaugurated Onassis Ready, resists the tidy framing of a retrospective. Instead, it unfolds as an active, evolving dialogue between Swinton and a close circle of collaborators. Among them Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Jim Jarmusch, Joanna Hogg, Tim Walker, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Olivier Saillard, and Derek Jarman. Through short films, installations, and photographic works, the exhibition gently dismantles and reassembles the layers of her artistic identity, moving between the dreamlike and the intimately personal. The result is a multi-stranded exhibition that illuminates her rich creative journey and her profound connection to contemporary art.

Street Outdoors 2026
2026-05-24 19:00 - 23:00 | Eleftherias Park, Eleftherias Park, Athens, Athens, 115 21, Greece
The Street Outdoors crew, the team behind some of the most influential open-air parties of the last decade, reclaim Eleftherias Park as the ultimate meeting point for the city’s vibrant, extroverted soul. Stripping away the “closed club” mentality, the music here breathes freely under the trees, in a setting that perfectly fuses raw urban energy with wide-open spaces.

With a sound that balances the latest electronic trends with the classic spirit of a true block party, Street Outdoors crafts an experience that starts laid-back and gradually surges into a massive celebration. Dance, connection, and a shared sense of “togetherness” are at the heart of the night, an afternoon and evening that proves how naturally the city can transform through rhythm. It’s more proof that Athens beats strongest when it steps outside.

Constantine Xenakis – Dimitris Chiotopoulos: Writing and Trace Two Journeys into the Labyrinth
2026-05-25 11:30 - 14:30, 2026-05-25 17:30 - 20:30, 2026-05-26 11:30 - 14:30, 2026-05-26 17:30 - 20:30, 2026-05-27 11:30 - 14:30 | Gallery Ersi, Kleomenous 4, Athens, Athens, 106 75, Greece
Ersi Gallery hosts a deep and unexpectedly poetic dialogue between two masters of the symbolic: Constantine Xenakis and Dimitris Chiotopoulos.

Writing and Trace explores the moment when a mark, a symbol, or a simple gesture transcends its everyday use to become a language of its own. Dense with meaning and open to endless interpretation. The internationally acclaimed Xenakis employs codes, hieroglyphs, and signals from modern communication to offer a sharp commentary on how meaning is constructed in our digital age. In contrast, Chiotopoulos brings a more interior, tactile search to the gallery, weaving in archetypal shapes and calligraphy elements.

Together, they transform the “Labyrinth” into a space of discovery. This isn’t just an exhibition; it’s an invitation to stroll through a maze of signs and silences, losing yourself in the traces of culture only to find your own way back.

Guided Tour at the City of Athens Museum
2026-05-25 12:00 - 13:00 | The City of Athens Museum, 5-7 loannou Paparrigopoulou, Athens, 105 61, Greece
The City of Athens Museum (Vouros-Eutaxias Foundation) will welcome us for a rather special look at the capital’s modern history. The tour spans two iconic buildings that tell the story of a city finding its feet.
We start at the legendary “Old Palace”, the first residence of King Otto and Queen Amalia. It’s a space deeply intertwined with the very first steps Athens took as a modern European capital. Here, you’ll see the city through the objects and grand rooms that helped define its new, royal identity.

The journey then moves into the second building of the complex, the former home of the Dekozis-Vouros family. This is where things get personal. It offers a much more intimate glimpse into Athenian “high society” life, revealing the aesthetics, the daily habits, and domestic charm of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Through these collections and the stunning architecture itself, you’ll witness the trajectory of a city that was rapidly expanding and shaping its modern self. It’s a tour that beautifully bridges the gap between Athens’ grand political history and its private, everyday heart.

This activity is only available in Greek.

Panos Charalambous: COLUMBIA
2026-05-26 11:00 - 20:00, 2026-05-27 11:00 - 16:00 | CITRONNE Gallery, 19 Patriarchou Ioakim, Athens, 106 75, Greece
At CITRONNE Gallery, Panos Charalambous invites us to step into a “sonic room” that speaks directly to the memory of the city. The journey begins in 2006, the year the historic Columbia vinyl record factory in Rizoupoli was demolished, symbolically closing a massive chapter of Greek music history. Columbia was a place where the voices, songs, and moments that shaped our collective soundscape were once etched into wax.

Charalambous transforms the gallery into a visceral, immersive installation. Here, you are invited to walk across a “sound floor,” literally treading on the echoes of a memory that refuses to fade. It is a haunting reminder that music doesn’t vanish with the buildings that once housed it; instead, it survives through emotion, shared experience, and our collective imagination.

In a city that is constantly evolving, COLUMBIA is a profound meditation on decay, remembrance, and our deep-seated need to keep our shared history alive.

Andreas Spiliotopoulos: Heroes of Today
2026-05-26 12:00 - 16:00, 2026-05-26 17:00 - 20:00 | Astrolavos Art Gallery, 11 Xanthippou, Kolonaki, 106 75, Greece
Astrolavos Art Gallery presents the solo painting exhibition of Andreas Spiliotopoulos, titled “Heroes of Today”—a body of work that brings classical art into a direct dialogue with contemporary pop culture. Drawing influence from the allegorical and monumental traditions of painting, as well as the kinetic energy and narrative drive of comic books, the artist creates dense, multi-layered compositions teeming with parallel action.

On his canvases, joy coexists with fear, irony with drama, and the mundane with the hyperbolic. These modern-day “heroes” are not supernatural figures, but characters of contemporary life navigating fragility, intensity, and humour. The exhibition offers a vivid and penetrating look at our world, suggesting that the comic and the tragic are, ultimately, two sides of the same narrative coin.

Vera Stavrinadi: Pop-Up Frequencies
2026-05-26 12:00 - 16:00, 2026-05-26 17:00 - 20:00 | Astrolavos Art Gallery, 11 Xanthippou, Kolonaki, 106 75, Greece
Astrolavos Art Gallery hosts “Pop-Up Frequencies”, a striking sculptural intervention by Vera Stavrinadi that occupies the gallery space with undeniable presence and style. Monumental sculptures in the form of contemporary totems alternate with smaller floor and wall-mounted pieces, all bathed in the vibrant, fluorescent hues of pop culture and comic- book aesthetics.

With a sarcastic yet playful approach that draws on the world of children’s toys, the artist opens a fragmented dialogue regarding the values of modern society. By casting a critical eye on consumerist tropes and contemporary superficiality, Stavrinadi successfully marries a sharp perspective with an irresistibly joyful dimension. This experience invites us to view the “idols” of our everyday lives through a new, luminous, and subversive frequency.

Alexandros Georgiou
2026-05-26 12:00 - 18:00 | Rebecca Camhi Gallery, 9 Leonidou, Metaxourgio, 104 37, Greece
The Rebecca Camhi Gallery presents a solo exhibition by Alexandros Georgiou. Spanning over three decades of work from 1993 to 2026, the exhibition offers a profound, multi-layered look at the artist’s trajectory through oils and works on paper that reveal the evolution of his technique, themes, and internal search.

Georgiou introduces us to a personal, introspective world where memory, travel, and the metaphysical coexist with potent symbolism and a characteristic fluidity of line. His enigmatic figures and landscapes appear to hover outside of time, inviting the viewer on a quiet yet deep internal journey. This is a rare opportunity to engage with the work of an artist who moves with great sensitivity between the human and the transcendent.

Nikos Kalafatis: Primavera
2026-05-26 12:00 - 20:00, 2026-05-27 10:00 - 18:00 | Technohoros Art Gallery, 12 Lempesi, Athens, 117 42, Greece
Nikos Kalafatis presents Primavera, an exhibition curated by Athena Schina, at Technohoros Art Gallery. It is a vibrant, optimistic, and deeply personal tribute to the natural world. For Kalafatis, nature isn’t just a subject; it’s a constant source of daily observation and artistic discovery. Taking the energy of spring as his starting point, the artist creates a world where simple, discarded materials are granted a second life. Driftwood, metals, ropes, feathers, and various objets trouvés are meticulously transformed through painting, sculpture, and engraving into works brimming with poetry, ingenuity, and a subtle touch of wit.
This isn’t just a traditional look at the outdoors; it’s an invitation to adopt a lighter, more observant way of being, one that is open to the “everyday miracles” of the city and beyond. In the heart of the festival, Primavera proves that spring isn’t just a season; it’s a creative state of mind.

Giorgos Louloudis: The Path of Light – The Innate
2026-05-26 12:00 - 21:00 | Genesis Gallery, Ippokratous 121, Athens, Athens, 114 72, Greece
In his new solo exhibition at Gallery Genesis, Giorgos Louloudis places light centre stage, moving beyond its role as a mere physical phenomenon.The artist turns his focus toward the small Greek chapels and their unique relationship with the landscape, transforming them into potent symbols of hope, silence, and internal quest. These works function as quiet stations of contemplation, where physical space and psychological experience are inextricably linked.

Through a powerful expressionist style, Louloudis’s painted surfaces gain emotional intensity and depth. Light becomes an inner necessity, a force that guides the viewer toward a deeply personal reading of the work. This exhibition speaks to the universal need for solace and the enduring power of hope, asserting art’s ability to serve as a point of renewal and reflection in demanding times.

Demosthenes Agrafiotis: "Xαrtιά" [Crossroads & Junctions] 1975–2025
2026-05-26 17:00 - 21:00 | Art Project Space, 66 Falirou, Athens, 117 41, Greece
At Art Project Space, the exhibition “Xαrtιά” [Crossroads & Junctions] 1975–2025 carries both a retrospective and emotional resonance. Originally conceived by Demosthenes Agrafiotis himself for late 2025, his sudden passing has transformed this presentation into a vital tribute to the expansive work and thought of a true pioneer in Greek experimental art and poetry.

Spanning five decades of creation, the exhibition invites the public to navigate the “crossroads” where Agrafiotis’s writing, imagery, and theoretical enquiries met. It is a rare opportunity to trace the evolution of a mind that saw art as a constant state of transition and experimentation.

Alongside the retrospective, the exhibition presents his final creation: the artist’s book “Synoda” (Accompaniments), released in a limited, numbered edition of just 40 unique copies. This is more than an exhibition; it is a final, precious dialogue with an artist who thought of art as a field for experimentation, deep enquiry, and a state of constant transition.
