Are Art Athina and the Athens Biennale repositioning the Greek capital on the global art map? This September, under the direction of Antonis Kourkoulos, now in his third year, Art Athina 2025 takes over the Zappeion Megaron from the 18th to the 22nd September, bringing together the regional and international art community for a vibrant collection of contemporary art. Now in its thirty-first year, featuring 72 artists from Greece and beyond, the fair is Greece's largest annual visual art gathering and one of Europe's longest-running, active since its establishment by the Hellenic Art Galleries Association in 1993.
What distinguishes the fair is its insistence on being more than a commercial showcase. Alongside the booths runs a programme of presentations, curated projects, performances, and presentations, a platform for testing ideas and connecting Athens to global trends. Art Athina's longevity is remarkable. In a country that has witnessed economic strain and cultural uncertainty over the past decade, Art Athina has remained steady. This endurance signals something vital: that the newfound buzz of the Athens art scene is not temporary but a place that galleries and institutions should see long-term. For many young Greek artists, the fair provides a serious platform to present works alongside international peers, while for collectors, it offers the chance to discover a city often overlooked.
Where Art Athina provides structure and anchoring, since its first edition in 2003, the Athens Biennale provides urgency and experimentation, often with a political and social edge. The next edition, also opened this September and running until January 2026, carries the title Assembly: Collective Bodies, Shared Futures. Over sixty artists and collectives will take over historical buildings and repurposed industrial sites to probe questions of democracy, ecology, and technology in a time of fracture. The biennale thrives in these charged settings, disused schools, warehouses, and civic hall spaces, where art provocations are inseparable from the city's scars. It's less polished, but that's the point.
What makes these two events so potent is their complementary roles. Art Athina provides structure and visibility, drawing international collectors, positioning galleries, and situating the Greek art market globally. The biennale provides urgency and experimentation, with ideas that spill into the city itself.
Current exhibitions in Athens underscore how this momentum is not limited to September's headline events. At the Museum of Cycladic Art, Marlene Dumas: Cycladic Blues, which runs through November, brings more than thirty paintings and works on paper into dialogue with ancient figurines and sculpture from the museum's permanent collection. The pairings are striking. Dumas's layered, intimate explorations of the body and identity sit beside Cycladic marble abstraction that has resonated for millennia. These exhibitions don't just host contemporary art but rather force it into conversation with thousands of years of history.
The interplay between past and present is Athens' strongest card. Other cities often borrow heritage as a frame, whilst Athens lives inside it. This gives the city a texture other art capital cannot replicate. There is also the matter of geography. Athens sits at the edge of Europe but also on the threshold of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. This position offers a perspective that feels both European and global, rooted in a city that has been a crossroads for centuries. The Biennale has leaned into this, framing Athens as a space for dialogue about migration, identity, and the future of cities.
There are, inevitably, limits. Greece's economic crisis still casts a shadow, and cultural funding remains precarious. The local collector base is modest, funding structures are fragile, and logistics can be challenging. Athens cannot yet match the financial muscle of London, Paris, or New York. But to reduce an art city to numbers is to miss the point. Athens' appeal is not in mirroring others but in being itself: a place where young artists can still afford to work, where independent spaces can take risks, and where history is never just a backdrop.
So, is Athens the next big art city? It depends on how you define "big." If by big we mean a market saturated with blue-chip galleries, established collectors, and year-round fairs, then not yet. If by big we mean a city that artists are moving to, that international curators are watching, and that has become a genuine site of cultural production, then yes, Athens is already there.
In the end, perhaps the question is not whether Athens will "become" the next big art city but whether it can continue to grow on its own terms. If the energy around Art Athina and the Athens Biennale is any indication, the city is less interested in imitation and more focused on carving out a unique role in the global art world.
Further related reading
Art Athina Official Website: art-athina.gr
Athens Biennale Official Website: athensbiennale.org
This is Athens – Art Athina 2025: thisisathens.org
Museum of Cycladic Art – Marlene Dumas: Cycladic Blues: cycladic.gr
Wallpaper* – Marlene Dumas: Charged, Exposed, and Intimate Figures Gather in Athens: wallpaper.com
