Eleni Mylonas (Greek: Ελένη Μυλωνά; born 14 September 1944) is a Greek-born American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

Early life and education

Eleni Mylonas was born on 14 September 1944 in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

to father politician

Georgios Mylonas Georgios Mylonas (Greek: Γεώργιος Αλεξάνδρου Μυλωνάς; 6 April 1919 – 14 February 1998) was a Greek Center Union politician and government minister. He was a close aide to Greek statesman and premier Georgios Papandreou ...

, who's served as minister of Culture and Education, and mother Alex Mylona,

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and co-founder of th
MOMus Museum Alex Mylona
in Athens. She received a BA from the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...

in 1966 and an MA from the

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism s ...

in 1967 as a

Fulbright scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. She graduated in

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

at the

University of Westminster , mottoeng = The Lord is our Strength , type = Public , established = 1838: Royal Polytechnic Institution 1891: Polytechnic-Regent Street 1970: Polytechnic of Central London 1992: University of Westminster , endowment = £5.1 million ...

in 1972 and in

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

and

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

at the

New York Studio School The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of ...

in 1995.

Work

Mylonas is a multidisciplinary artist with works in traditional media,

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

, and

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

. Her first exhibition was ''Nude Landscapes'' at th
Zoumboulaki Gallery
of Athens, in 1982. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the

MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...

in New York City;

Benaki Museum The Benaki Museum, established and endowed in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, is housed in the Benakis family mansion in downtown Athens, Greece. The museum houses Greek works of art from the prehistorical to the ...

in Athens
Francoise Heitsch Gallery
in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center
in Athens
Zoumboulaki Gallery
in Athens; Foundation of Hellenic Culture in New York City and Art Resources Transfer. Her work has been shown at various museums and galleries including, the

Queens Museum The Queens Museum, formerly the Queens Museum of Art, is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States. The museum was founded in 1972, and has among its pe ...

in New York City; MOMus Museum in Thessaloniki; EMST Museum in Athens;

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

in New York
Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete
and the Alternative Museum in New York City. She has collaborated with international curators includin
Joanna de VosBeral MadraChristian Oxenius

Edward Leffingwell Edward G. Leffingwell (December 3, 1941 – August 5, 2014), was an American art critic and curator, affiliated with MoMA/P.S.1 and '' Art in America''Roberta Smith"Edward G. Leffingwell, Curator, Dies at 72"(obituary), ''The New York Times'', Aug ...

and Sozita Goudouna.Three bodies of work from her photographic archive, Ellis Island, NY Graffiti/Street Art and Portraits of Artists & Personalities, are part of the

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

Archives.

Reviews

On the occasion of the New York exhibition of Mylonas' series of photographs of the abandoned

Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...

, American art critic April Kingsley wrote the images make "rubble-covered rags look like the draperies on the

Nike of Samothrace The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', or the ''Nike of Samothrace'', is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the beg ...

." She added that the artist's "eye finds the formal beauty of ancient Greece at its most glorious in the least of the modern world's visual material--

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

, the rubble of abandoned buildings and empty lots, and, recently wrecked automobiles." Critic Evely Vogel of the ''

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat. History ...

'' remarked that her 2014 exhibition "Town Crier" was "inspired by the demonstrators of the

Arab spring The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in T ...

" and "full of revolutionary urge and humor." The artist's "

allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

call," she concluded, "to "fight against

tyranny A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to rep ...

is just too timeless." During the first Athens Biennial, from 10 September until 18 November 2007, named "Destroy Athens" with the intention to "lay waste to the association of Greece with classical culture," her video piece ''Lamb of God'' that closed the show had been reportedly "captured on the first day of the U.S. invasion of Iraq." According to ''

ArtNet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on t ...

s Brian Skar, the "spare" clip "hammer dtogether in a single point, myth, the abject, and the groping for larger social significance that characterizes he whole Biennial"

Personal life

In 1967, she married write
Elias Kulukundis
who subsequently became involved in springing outside the country her father who, at the time, was imprisoned and exiled in the Aegean island of

Amorgos Amorgos ( el, Αμοργός, ; ) is the easternmost island of the Cyclades island group and the nearest island to the neighboring Dodecanese island group in Greece. Along with 16 neighboring islets, the largest of which (by land area) is Niko ...

by the

regime In politics, a regime (also "régime") is the form of government or the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of a government or institution and its interactions with society. According to Yale professor Juan Jo ...

. They divorced in the late 1970s.

Publications

*1984:

Ralph Lauren Ralph Lauren, ( ; ; born October 14, 1939) is an American fashion designer, philanthropist, and billionaire businessman, best known for the Ralph Lauren Corporation, a global multibillion-dollar enterprise. He has become well known for his co ...

Bo Niles
''White Designs''. Published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang. *1985
Edward Booth-Clibborn
''American Photography One'' Published by Polygon Editions S.A.R.L. * 1985
Edward Booth-Clibborn
''American Photography 6'' Published by

Rizzoli International Publications Rizzoli Libri, formerly Rizzoli Libri S.p.A. and RCS Libri S.p.A. is an Italian book publisher and a division of Mondadori Libri, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. RCS Libri was a former subsidiary of RCS MediaGroup, but in ...

. * 1985:

Ivan Chermayeff Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv (formerly Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar and Chermayeff & Geismar) is a New York City, New York-based Branding agency, branding and graphic design firm. It is currently led by partners Tom Geismar and Sagi Haviv. ...

, Fred Wasserman
Mary J. Shapiro
''Ellis Island/An Illustrated History of the Immigrant Experience''.

Macmillan Publishers Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...

*1992: Judith Smith,
Celebrating Immigration History at Ellis Island
'.

The Johns Hopkins University Press The Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publi ...

. *1997:

Barbara Rose Barbara Ellen Rose (June 11, 1936December 25, 2020) was an American art historian, art critic, curator and college professor. Rose's criticism focused on 20th-century American art, particularly minimalism and abstract expressionism, as well as S ...

, ''Chryssa Cycladic Books 1957-1962''.

Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art The Nicholas P. Goulandris Foundation - Museum of Cycladic Art is a museum of Athens. It houses a notable collection of artifacts of Cycladic art. The museum was founded in 1986 in order to house the collection of Cycladic and Ancient Greek art ...

. * 1999:

Peter Selz Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism. Biography Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, h ...

, William Valerio, ''Modern Odysseys: Greek American Artists of the 20th Century''.

Queens Museum of Art The Queens Museum, formerly the Queens Museum of Art, is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States. The museum was founded in 1972, and has among its p ...

Collections

* National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens *

Athens College Athens College ( el, Κολλέγιο(ν) Αθηνών; formally Hellenic-American Educational Foundation (HAEF)) is a co-educational private preparatory school in Psychiko, Greece, a suburb of Athens, part of the Hellenic-American Educational ...

American College of Greece The American College of Greece (ACG) is a private college and high school in Agia Paraskevi, Greece. It was founded by United Church of Christ American missionaries in 1875. It was originally a primary and secondary school for girls. As of 2020, ...

Goulandris Museum of Natural History The Goulandris Museum of Natural History is a museum in Kifisia, a northeastern suburb of Athens, Greece. It was founded by Angelos Goulandris and Niki Goulandris in 1965 in order to promote interest in the natural sciences, to raise the awaren ...

* Ellis Island Museum
G&A Mamidakis Foundation

FKP Collection
re
FKP Collection
''Salt Lake City'', 1998, Cibachrome (48 x 48 x 3 in)
FOUGARO Art Center

References

External links

*
Francoise Heitsch Gallery

Interview
to ''Art Scene Athens'', 28 December 2016
Documentary
on Eleni Mylonas by Katerina Zacharopoulou for ERT TV
Artist Eleni Mylonas portfolio
at the New York Artists Circle * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mylonas, Eleni 1944 births Living people Artists from Athens University of Geneva alumni People from SoHo, Manhattan Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni Alumni of the University of Westminster