The President, Ms. Susanna Kardoulia, and the Board of Directors of the Museum of Modern Greek Art of the Municipality of Rhodes present the group exhibition “Second Life / The Desire of Matter” (Second Life), curated and with text by Dr. Kostas Prapoglou, the Museum’s Artistic Director.
The exhibition opening will take place on Friday, November 13, 2026, at 7:00 p.m., in the New Wing of the Nestorideion Melathron. The exhibition will run through January 9, 2027.
The exhibition is part of the Museum’s second open call and brings together twelve artists with ties to Rhodes. Through the juxtaposition of their works, a polyphonic landscape of the island’s contemporary visual arts emerges, inviting the public into a dialogue.
As the exhibition’s curator, Dr. Kostas Prapoglou, notes: “Matter bears traces of everything that has touched its life: uses, wear and tear, images, and memories. In the works of the exhibition, these traces are transformed and take on new forms. Each transformation leaves open the material’s path toward a new life.”
At the heart of the exhibition lies reactivation: the moment when a material, an object, or an image enters a new context and reveals different possibilities. Their previous uses, signs of wear, and emotional weight remain in their new forms, like delicate layers of time.
Retrospective interpretation offers a key to understanding this shift. An experience in the present can shed new light on an older event, while the artistic act returns to familiar or forgotten images and sets them in motion once more. Reconstruction takes time, allowing for the recognition of the obsessions, losses, and desires that accompany every change.
Through painting, collage, sculpture, and installations, the artists engage with everyday and disposable materials, printed matter, natural finds, and personal artifacts. The works open a dialogue about memory, consumption, and the attribution of value, as well as about our responsibility toward what we inherit. The public is invited to reflect on what is preserved, what is transformed, and how each choice is inscribed in the world around us.
Participating artists:
- Dimitris Vassiliou
- Georgia Grigoriadou
- Stamatis Kozas
- Victoria Kontou
- John Wilson
- Domna Panagopoulou
- Damon Papakyriakou
- Vasiliki Pitsi
- Sofia Preka
- Maria Soroniati
- Stamatia Stergenaki
- Kostas Feizidis
Useful Information:
Venue: New Wing of the Nestorideion Melathron, Museum of Modern Greek Art of the Municipality of Rhodes (12 Gabriel Charitou Square, 85131, Rhodes)
Dates: November 13, 2026 – January 9, 2027
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Information: Ms. Ismini Koufou, Deputy Director of the Museum of Modern Greek Art of the Municipality of Rhodes (Tel.: 2241036646, FAX: 2241023766, Email: contact@mgamuseum.gr)