Transatlantic Art Exhibition, Faces of the Hero, to Premiere in Outdoor Public Spaces in New York and Athens

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) today announced Faces of the Hero, a transatlantic visual arts exhibition to be presented in both New York City and Athens this summer as the inaugural collaboration of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation – Lincoln Center Agora Initiative (SNF-LC). Works by students from the Parsons School of Design and Athens School of Fine Arts that examine the meaning of a “hero” and “heroism” through time will be displayed in outdoor public spaces on both campuses for free beginning in July.

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 public spaces for a new era through international “Twin Agoras” at Lincoln Center and the SNFCC.

Faces of the Hero invites student artists to submit their works interpreting heroic figures or facets of heroism from the past until present day. A jury comprised of art professionals and leaders from Athens and New York City will choose 20 works for display, 10 from each city.

The free exhibition will be part of Restart Stages, an outdoor performing arts center being created on Lincoln Center’s campus and launching on World Health Day, April 7. 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 will welcome the public to reactivated outdoor spaces, to be 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.

“Particularly vital at a time when travel is limited, the SNF-LC Agora Initiative endeavors to build bridges across the ocean, connecting us through art and public space. We hope the ‘Twin Agoras’ in Athens and New York City serve as a creative catalyst and valuable reminder of the importance of connection across people and cultures, and the many forms this can take. We look forward to the students’ interpretations of heroism, from the past to its new implication in the present.”  – Andreas Dracopoulos, SNF Co-President

“Finding innovative ways to offer accessible, public space to artists and community members is central to our work. With the first project of this new partnership, we are putting the arts at the center of timely civic discourse. This is the first of many activations we will undertake through the SNF-LC Agora Initiative with our friends at the SNFCC, alongside artists and community members here in New York and in Athens. These connections are so essential to the vitality of our city, never more so than as we come back from this pandemic.” – Henry Timms, President and CEO of Lincoln Center

“This inaugural project of our partnership with Lincoln Center kicks off a promising collaboration, one that builds strong ties with the art community internationally, this time with the young creative talent at the Parsons School of Design in New York and the School of Fine Arts in Athens. We are thrilled that this exhibition is inspired by the SNFCC exploration of the ‘Faces of the Hero’, on the occasion of the 200-year anniversary of the Greek Revolution, as well as by the heroes that have emerged in our current times, and we are grateful to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for envisioning and enabling this collaboration through its grants to Lincoln Center and the SNFCC.” – Elly Andriopoulou, Managing Director SNFCC

The necessity of accessible public spaces that enhance civic life and meet artistic needs has only been heightened by the effects of the pandemic. Throughout 2021, both campuses in New York City and Athens will be enlivened by a substantial knowledge-exchange link and varied artistic collaborations. Lincoln Center and the SNFCC’s shared vision will allow benefits of the collaboration to flow in both directions across the Atlantic, creating “Twin Agoras.”

The two institutions will provide artists, thinkers, and creative professionals with the space to create new work that responds dynamically to current events, to foster the exchange of ideas, as well as to experiment and investigate the notion of mirroring events and sparking conversations across continents.