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ATHENS RIVIERA JOURNAL
culture

"WE HAVE THE POWER WITHIN US. An Ode to Maternity

WE JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE."

Louise Bourgeois’s Maman (1999) has been

brought by NEON and the Stavros Niarchos

Foundation Cultural Center at SNFCC’s Esplanade.

We have the power within us. We just have to believe. ollaborating for the first time,
NEON and the Stavros Niarchos
What is it about Greece, as a country but also as spe- C Foundation Cultural Center (SN-
cific areas and destinations, that inspires you most? FCC) aim to bring contemporary
The Greek sea, the sun, the light in the Cyclades, the art closer to everyone, while fulfilling
traditional whitewashed houses, the ancient temples, their goals of revitalising public space
the winding paths of Mount Olympus, the sunsets, and improving citizens’ daily life.
which are so incredibly different from place to place Maman, standing at over 10 metres tall, was created
across the country. Living in Greece and raising my for the Tate Modern’s first Turbine Hall commis-
child here gives me the strength and the motivation sion in 2000, and was subsequently cast in an edi-
to continue using my brushes and my paint to make tion of bronze, stainless steel, and marble. Bourgeois
art that inspires and rouses and showcases the beauty stated that the work was symbolic of her mother,
of my country.  a weaver and tapestry restorer. With ten eggs in its
carolinerovithi.com / allyouneedisgreece.gr / abdomen, the sculpture embodies ideas of mater-
@caroline_rovithi nal protection. However, the artist’s relationship
to motherhood was ambiguous, contradictory,
and complex. Dominating its surroundings and
teetering on rangy, segmented legs, Maman also
evokes fear and suggests entrapment. Bourgeois’s
art was informed by her life, particularly her child-
hood years. She first made drawings of spiders in
the late 1940s, and nearly 50 years later created the
giant three-dimensional spiders for which she has
Clockwise from top right: become well-known.
We are happy to show After studying geometry at the Sorbonne, Paris
you Greece, Caroline’s born Bourgeois changed her focus to art. In 1938,
take on the iconic NY
coffee cup; Olympic she moved to New York with her husband Robert
Games 2004; and Take a Goldwater, an American art historian. In the mid-
treat, a gumball machine 1940s, she began her first sculptures, the Personages,
full of Greece’s wonder ANDERS NORRSELL © THE EASTON FOUNDATION/LICENSED BY OSDEETE/ ΟΣΔΕΕΤΕ, ATHENS, GREECE AND VAGA AT ARS, NY. a series of anthropomorphic but abstract figures
ingredients.
carved out of wood. In the 1970s—after her hus-
band’s death—and via the work The Destruction
of the Father (1974), she reinvented herself as a pi-
oneer of installation, an artform she explored fur-
ther from 1991 until her death in her series of Cells.
Today, her work is in the collections of the Muse-
um of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of
Agenda 2022 American Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in
Caroline Rovithi΄s art pieces will travel to Mykonos island this August for a solo exhibition at Skoufa Gal- London, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in
lery in collaboration with the Mamush Gallery. During summer, more of her work will be presented at Oia Paris, among many others. In 2022, an exhibition
Τreasures on Santorini island, My Crown Art Collection on Hydra island and at the Designers Room of her paintings will be on view at the Metropoli-
on Kastellorizo island. In Athens, the “All you need is Greece” collection will be exhibited at the Skoufa tan Museum of Art in New York. 
Gallery located in Syntagma and at the Mamush Gallery in Kifissia area. September has even more travel Maman | Louise Bourgeois | 31 March – 6 November
in store for her with an imminent Monaco event and a small film being produced on Olympos Mountain. Louise Bourgeois, Maman (1999) at The Wanås Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden, 2006. 2022. The Esplanade, Stavros Niarchos Foundation
Waiting for all that, you can now stream the small “All Υou Νeed is Greece” film on Youtube. Cultural Center.

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