Stavros Niarchos Foundation – Lincoln Center Agora Initiative Presents Faces of the Hero a Transatlantic Art Exhibition on Display in New York and Athens

The project is made possible by the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), as part of the SNF-LC Agora Initiative, a collaboration that reimagines and reactivates cultural engagement in public spaces for a new era through international “Twin Agoras” at Lincoln Center and the SNFCC.

Faces of the Hero invited student artists and recent alumni to submit their works interpreting heroic figures or facets of heroism from the past until present day to a jury of representatives of the four institutions. The jury comprised of:

• Nikos Tranos, Professor, Athens School of Fine Arts, Dean of the Athens School of Fine Arts
• George Kazazis, Professor, Athens School of Fine Arts
• Maria Veronica San Martin, multi-disciplinary artist and educator
• Lydia Matthews, Professor of Visual Culture, Parsons School of Design/The New School
• Julia Foulkes, Professor of History, Parsons School of Design/The New School
• Gabriella Triantafyllis, Director of Programming and Production, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center

The selected 20 works that are currently on display, include 10 works from each city:

• Arpi Adamyan – The Island Orphanage
• Christos Antonopoulos – In Obscurity
• Konstantina Barbari – Beka – Exceeding the limits
• Layo Bright – Adebisi III
• Dimitrios Chitas – Helmets II
• Nicole Economides – Revisiting The Hero
• Caroline Garcia – Rebolusyon (Queen of the Carabao)
• Santo Jacobsson – Community Power
• Paulina Kim Joo – Kuruta
• Niovi Kafantari – Horses Inside Horse (after Delacroix)
• Josephine Lee – Signs in Another Language (series)
• Eleftheria Papadouraki – Fragments
• Anna  Papadopoulou – BΟULOUBINA
• Kallia Papadopoulou – Nikiforos Mandilaras amid violent incidents during ASPIDA trial
• Liana Eleni Papalexis – White hero
• Depy Pavlidou – The end of the shift
• Kevin Quilles Bonilla  – Carryover (Blue tarp at Chelsea Piers) [after Sylvia Rivera]
• Giouli (Panagiota) Stylianidou – Upfall
• Chuyi Sun – Madam Pang
• Isaiah Winters – Reverend Hathaway

The selected works, spanning painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography, collage, video, text-based art- photographed for the purposes of this exhibition- capture in an abstract or representational manner, responses to key moments in history, as well as to fragments of contemporary society and discourse. With their participation in this transatlantic visual investigation of the idea of heroism, student-artists gain visibility among the visitors of the two major campuses in New York and Athens prompting questions and conversations among them.

The free exhibition is part of Restart Stages, an outdoor performing arts center being created on Lincoln Center’s campus. Faces of the Hero is also the title of the themed events programming of SNFCC on the occasion of the 200-year anniversary of the beginning of the Greek Revolution. Additional events, including plays, concerts, and educational programs celebrating the Greek historical milestone, will take place on the SNFCC campus in Athens.

Faces of the Hero is the first major collaboration of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation-Lincoln Center Agora Initiative, a partnership that prioritizes meaningful artistic and community-focused activations of public spaces. With the partnership, Lincoln Center’s iconic 16-acre Manhattan campus welcomes the public to reactivated outdoor spaces, utilized as an “agora” a public gathering place at the center of civic life. A desire to give Athens a similar space, one that truly belongs to the public, guided SNF in both creating the SNFCC through its largest grant to date and in giving it over to the people of Greece in 2017.