The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens is finally open to the public! Here's some information you need to know to plan your visit there.
Athens Contemporary Art Museum
Athens has something of a problem.
It is pigeon-holed as a city famous only for its old stuff.
Spend 2 days in Athens and you can see it all!
Except, that isn't true, and it means that places such as the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens often get overlooked.
To be fair to the average visitor, places such as this and more than 80 other museums in Athens are not exactly well promoted.
As part of my Athens in focus series of blog posts, I thought I would try and do my bit to raise its profile! If you are looking to see beyond Ancient Athens, this place is certainly worth visiting.
National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens
The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens has been a museum without a home for many years.
Although work started on developing the main building in 2000, it has literally only just opened its doors to the public.
It was worth the wait though. The museum is housed in the old Fix brewery building, and has been laid out beautifully.
As far as I can make out, there are no permanent exhibitions yet. (Keep in mind information is both contradictory and hard to find in Greece!).
Instead, a series of temporary exhibitions are being hosted. When I visited, the exhibition was called ‘Urgent Conversations: Athens-Antwerp'.
The exhibition Urgent Conversations: Athens–Antwerp is a collaboration between EMST and M HKA, a theoretical and visual dialogue, based on works from the collections of both museums, which includes more than 70 works structured in 22 topics.
What Did I Think?
On a personal level, I have to say that contemporary art/modern art can be a bit hit and miss for me.
Sometimes I find it fascinating, sometimes weird, and sometimes just pointless.
The important thing though, is to realise that I am privileged to be able to go and visit such an exhibition in the first place.
I also hope that a lot of Athenians realise the same thing.
More importantly however, I hope that visitors to Athens will be encouraged to visit the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens.
There is more to Athens and Greece than ancient ruins, sun, sea and sand. You just need to know where to look.
Information on visiting the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens
OPENING HOURS
For more travel blog posts about Athens, take a look at my ultimate guide to Athens. If you are planning a vacation in other parts of Greece as well, my Greece travel guides will also be of use.
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– Dave BriggsDave is a travel writer from the UK who's been living in Athens, Greece since 2015. As well as writing this guide to the Contemporary Art Museum in Athens, he's also written hundreds of other travel blog posts and itineraries for travel destinations all over Greece. Follow Dave on social media for travel inspiration from Greece and beyond: