ArtVolt

Athens-born artist Kyvèli Zoi has opened her debut London solo exhibition, Communication Breakdown, at SOUP.

Living and working between Athens and Paris, Zoi creates dreamlike, theatrical paintings that explore the connections between human communities, the natural world, traditional music, history and social struggle. Familiar details are pushed into strange, heightened settings, transforming the everyday into something more symbolic and otherworldly. Curated by Megan Macnaughton. On view until 24th October.

Communication Breakdown – Kyvèli Zoi
📍 SOUP, 227 East St., London

Something special is coming to Athens! 💧🎶

clinamen – Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
📍 Onassis Mandra, 2 Dionysiou Areopagitou St., Plaka
📅 Opening 26 September | On view until 5 December 2026

Three pools of water. Hundreds of white porcelain bowls. And a musical composition that will never sound the same twice. This September, acclaimed French artist, musician and composer Céleste Boursier-Mougenot brings his celebrated installation clinamen to Athens, but this time, it will be presented outdoors for the first time.

First conceived in 1997 and since presented around the world, from SFMOMA and the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection to New York’s Park Avenue Armory, clinamen is a living soundscape, shaped by water, movement and the delicate chime of colliding porcelain. Individually selected for their particular sound, the porcelain bowls float across gently circulating water, occasionally meeting and colliding to produce delicate, crystalline notes.

The Athens setting makes this edition particularly special. clinamen will inaugurate the renovated Onassis Mandra, the only surviving open-air Athenian theatre from the Belle Époque, tucked beside the Onassis Library and Dionysiou Areopagitou beneath the Acropolis. Here, the work will respond not only to its architecture, but to Athen’s changing light, the sounds of the city and even the weather—if it rains, the rain simply joins the song.

This will be a place to stop, listen and daydream in the middle of Athens. We can’t wait to experience this one!!

Opening this week in Athens! 👀

ALEXIMON – Group Show
📍 Andie Art Gallery
52 artists come together around themes of protection and solidarity, with part of the proceeds supporting the Lions Club of Athens Kifissia. On view until 3 Oct.

Seascapes and Swimmers – George Hadoulis
📍 Skoufa Gallery
New paintings, works on paper, and ceramics centered on the sea and human presence within it. On view until 10 Oct.

Grids – Aubert Issachar
📍 Roma Gallery
Issachar’s first solo show in Greece examines the grid as a structure for language, information, and everyday experience. On view until 10 Oct.

Intersections III: Ruthless Reality – Group Show
📍 a.antonopoulou.art
Contemporary artists respond to the tensions and complexities of today’s social and historical reality. On view until 17 Oct.

Deeply Dramatic Art – Elias Kafouros
📍 Dio Horia Gallery
New paintings and drawings combine cinema, comics, popular culture, and memory to examine how we construct reality. On view until 7 Nov.

Nullibi Nemo – Aliki Pappa
📍 Ekfrasi – Yianna Grammatopoulou Gallery
Meticulously rendered pencil works create a dreamlike world between memory, absence, and reality. On view until 10 Oct.

Persistent Interval – Group Show
📍 Upper Ankyle
Seven artists consider the present as a state of transition between what has passed and what is yet to take shape. On view until 11 Oct.

Winter Nights – Group Show
📍 Living Room
Norwegian, Greek, and Icelandic artists reflect on seasonal rituals, ecological memory, and our relationship with nature.

Things to Hold – Sophia Papacosta
📍 Zoumboulakis Galleries
Works in graphite and oil pastel reflect on memory, what we preserve, and what ultimately disappears. On view until 10 Oct.

Save this post — fall art fair season is officially on! ✈️

Frieze Seoul and Kiaf SEOUL kicked things off last week, and from here the calendar gets busy. New York, London, Paris, Turin, Cologne, Miami: we’ve rounded up the major fairs to have on your radar from September through December.

Swipe through for the ArtVolt Fall 2026 Art Fair Guide.

And these are just the highlights: Independent 20th Century joins New York’s September line-up, while Untitled Art is another one to watch during Miami Art Week. Comment below to let us know if we've missed something!

Back in Athens? As the city starts to come back to life after a long hot summer, there’s still plenty of time to catch Gen X: Tales from the Forgotten Generation at the DESTE Foundation!

📍 DESTE Foundation, Athens
📅 On view until 26 November 2026
🕐 Tuesday–Thursday, 12:00–20:00

Drawn from the Dakis Joannou Collection, the exhibition looks at a generation of artists born between 1960 and 1980—the often-overlooked cohort caught between the cultural dominance of the Baby Boomers and Millennials. Coming of age amid the prosperity of the 1980s and the recessions that followed, these artists responded with irony, irreverence and a willingness to dismantle convention. Across the exhibition, lowbrow aesthetics, fashion, media, identity, sexuality and the emerging digital world collide, capturing a generation negotiating rapid cultural and technological change and the beginnings of an increasingly globalised future.

Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Artistic Director of the New Museum, with Calvin Wang and Taeyi Kim.

Opening to the public tomorrow in Venice: 500+ artisans, 700+ extraordinary objects and more than 70 countries come together for the fourth edition of Homo Faber.
But Homo Faber is about far more than beautiful objects. The biennial takes its name from the idea of the “human maker” — our uniquely human ability to transform materials, ideas and the world around us through skill and creativity. Dedicated to championing contemporary craftsmanship and the people behind it, this year’s edition, An Island of Light, places the artisan’s hands, tools, materials and knowledge firmly at the centre of the experience.
For 2026, acclaimed British artist and designer Es Devlin transforms the historic Fondazione Giorgio Cini on San Giorgio Maggiore into a journey through 15 immersive installations, using light, water, mirrors, movement and sound to reveal craftsmanship in entirely different ways. Visitors move from an imagined artisan’s studio and portraits of the participating makers to projected silhouettes of handcrafted objects, moon jars reflected across water, illuminated paper birds, mirrored cloisters and rooms devoted entirely to white, light and extraordinary colour.
The setting is integral to the experience. Inspired by the islands of the Venetian lagoon, Devlin imagines each artisan as an individual island of talent within a much larger archipelago of craftsmanship, allowing the architecture, gardens and changing Venetian light of San Giorgio Maggiore to become part of the exhibition itself.
And the making doesn’t stop behind the displays: live artisan demonstrations, hands-on workshops, tours and culinary experiences run throughout the month, while Homo Faber in Città extends the celebration into workshops and cultural spaces across Venice.
If you’re heading to Venice this September, Homo Faber 2026 is one to put firmly on the list!

Homo Faber 2026: An Island of Light
📍 Fondazione Giorgio Cini, San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
📅 1–30 September 2026
Artistic direction by Es Devlin | Curated by the Michelangelo Foundation

Opening tomorrow in Patmos 👀

Jewellery Was Never Innocent – Group Show
📍 Patmion Cultural Center, Skala, Patmos
📅 Opening: Tues. 18 Aug., 18.00–22.00
🗓 On view: 18–23 Aug.
🕐 Opening hours: 10.00–13.00 & 18.00–21.00

Presented by The Great Design Disaster and Joy Herro, Jewellery Was Never Innocent explores jewellery as an extension of the body, a sculptural device, and a space where personal, social, and cultural meanings intersect. Bringing together artists, designers, architects, photographers, filmmakers, and other creatives, the exhibition considers jewellery beyond ornament, exploring identity, perception, presence, absence, and transformation.

Designers include Andrea Mancuso, Casa Milana, Cécile Feilchenfeldt + Maddalena Casadei, Christine Kalia, David/Nicolas, Dia Mrad, Flavie Audi, Harry Rigalo, Jacopo Foggini, Marcin Rusak, Najla El Zein, Oh Hyunseog, Philippe Malouin, Shaha Raphael, Sophie Dries, Superloop, and Tino Seubert.

Artists include Alex Tzanis, Camille Rousseau + Lora Ujkaj, Cosima Bucarelli, Dimitra Dimopoulou, Farida El Gazzar, Giovanni De Francesco, Ieva Saudargaitė Douaihi, Jaime Poblete, Lien Hoang-Xuan, Margarita Myrogianni, Mary Weatherford, Sofia Stevi, Thomas Devaux, Venus Avery, and Zoe Paul.

Also participating are Alessandra Ienca, Deniz Galip, Gregory Gatserelia, Tommaso Fantoni, Asli Turker, Bianca Cedrone, Vasiliki, Marlon Rueberg, Nohad Bouez, OLDER Studio, Oslo Made in Heaven, Studio Vedèt + Linalou, and Lessico Familiare.

Following Patmos, the exhibition travels to TGDD Space in Milan in September, followed by the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum in Athens in November during Art Athina.

Still in Athens? If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t miss Jeff Koons: ‘Venus’ Lespugue before it closes at the end of the month.

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey spanning more than 40,000 years of representations of the human body. It begins in a dark, cave-like space containing ten certified replicas of Paleolithic “Venus” figurines from major European collections, before opening into a bright room dominated by Koons’ monumental Balloon Venus Lespugue (Orange) (2013–2019), presented publicly for the first time.

Koons first became fascinated by the 28,000-year-old Venus of Lespugue in the late 1970s, drawn to its exaggerated curves and surprisingly modern form. In his interpretation, mammoth ivory becomes mirror-polished stainless steel and the ancient figure is transformed into something monumental, playful, and intensely reflective. As you move around it, you see the room, the people beside you, and your own image reflected back.

Through this contrast between ancient and contemporary materials, darkness and light, the exhibition explores beauty, fertility, technology, memory, and the ways the human form continues to connect us across thousands of years.

📍 Museum of Cycladic Art, Neofitou Douka 4
📅 On view until 31 August 2026

📸s courtesy of Paris Tavitian & Museum of Cycladic Art

Opening tomorrow in Mykonos!

Antikatoptrismoí: Reflections – Group Show
📍 Rancho Kaya, Mykonos
📅 Opening: Thurs. 6 Aug, 18.00

Co-curated by Theadora Karos and Camila Bernaldez, Antikatoptrismoí: Reflections brings together artists from Los Angeles, New York, Athens, London, and Sweden to explore reflection through light, shadow, pattern, repetition, and material. Featuring works by Nicolette Mishkan, Archer Defterios, Joe Reihsen, Avery Wheless, Alexandra Dore, G. Milanesi, Marina Kappos, Mia Golds, Ava McDonough, Cal Pav, Maria Sigma, Nona Jato, Shahla K. Friberg, Finn Kazmack, and Dimitris Gketsis.

RSVP: DM or [email protected]

Opening this week in Santorini:

Birds of Passage – Group Show
📍 Hiraeth Santorini, Megalochori, Santorini
📅 Opening: Thurs. 6 Aug., 18.00
Presented by CYPHER, Birds of Passage transforms a residential complex into a temporary exhibition space, bringing together paintings by Ioannis Aristotelous, Dimosthenis Barbas (Barba Dee), Elena-Dimitra Chantzis, Dimitris Efeoglou, Panagiotis Kefalas, Owen Osunde, Yorgos Papafigos, Katerina Papazissi, and Eleni Tomadaki. Curated by Isavella Kladaki. Opening night features a live act and DJ set by Aquatic Ensemble. On view until 20 Sept.