The exhibition Mythologies of the Book; Contemporary Greek Artists is organized as part of the Ministry of Culture’s events for the International Book Fait “Frankfurt 2001. Guest of Honour: Greece”.
The exhibition is held under the auspices of the Cultural Olympics and is the first to bring together a total of 38 artists, from the first half of the 20th century to this day, whose work was conceptually and linguistically associated with the issues of speech, writing and books. 
The concept of the exhibition was by art historian and critic Efi Strousa, who is also the curator, while Angeliki Antonopoulou, owner of a.antonopoulou.art (formerly Epikentro Gallery) has the coordination of the show. 
The exhibition opens in Frankfurt in October 9, the day of the official opening of the tribute to Greece, at the new Forum exhibition space of the Frankfurt Book Fair which is the venue for the events of the tribute to Greece.
The show is divided into three main parts: a historical introduction which brings together a selection of outstanding specimens from the work of some of the most prominent masters of engraving whose illustrated books were the first to introduce into the history of modern Greek art a high-quality approach to the art of typography. This unit comprises original editions by Dimitrios Galanis, Efthymios Papadimitriou, Yannis Kefalinos, Spyros Vassiliou and A. Tassos.  This part of the exhibition was curated by art historian Irene Orati. 
The second part, the main body of the show, comprises artists’ recent and contemporary works from the 1960s to 2001, spanning a wide range of media: painting, installations, environments, video, sound, speech, publications, artist’s books, object books. Specifically, the exhibition focuses on works by artists whose interest in language, books and the written word reveals an inherent trait of their personal idiom or formed the basis for a significant turning point in their artistic evolution, such as Demosthene Agrafiotis, Dimitri Alithinos, Stephen Antonakos, Achilleas Aperghis, Michalis Arfaras, Kostas Archaniotis, Leoni Vidali, Yannis Dimitrakis, Nikos Zouboulis & Titsa Grekou, Theodoulos, Dimitris Condos, Yorgos Lazongas, Maria Loizidou, Despina Meimaroglou, Bia Davou, Constantin Xenakis, Pavlos, Tassos Pavlopoulos, Nakis Panayotidis, Antonis Panagopoulos, Kyrillos Sarris, Marios Spiliopoulos, Jannis Spyropoulos, Takis, Dimitris Tragas, Yorgos Tsakiris, Pandelis Chandris, George Hadzimichalis, Nikos Houliarias, Chryssa, Jannis Psychopedis and Alexandros Psychoulis.

The third part of the exhibition presents some of the finest examples of artist’s books, including those by Demosthene Agrafiotis, Dimitri Alithinos, Stephen Antonakos, Michalis Arfaras, Leoni Vidali, Yannis Dimitrakis, Nikos Zouboulis & Titsa Grekou, Theodoulos, Maria Loizidou, Despina Meimaroglou, Tassos Pavlopoulos, Takis, Dimitris Tragas, Yorgos Tsakiris and Alexandros Psychoulis, while Kyrillos Sarris’s installation with books, notebooks, hymnbooks and a video with excerpts from Ulises Carrión’s The New Art of Making Books introduces viewers into a multi-faceted, questioning approach to books and art.
The interpretation of the history of modern Greek art under this prism reveals the genuine and particular character of the intellectual quests of Greek artists, and the various artistic innovations that emerged in their work as a result of their discourse with contemporary international trends. There has been a remarkable number of Greek artists who displayed frequent and unwavering interest in the art of making books and, from the 1960s onwards, in the importance of writing, speech, the concept of the book, the interaction between image and speech and the perception of art as a space which condenses memory and turns it into speech; thus they have added to history a varied, evolving relationship with the intellectual realm of art, drafting a new “mythology” of the interaction between artistic language and oral and written speech.
The realization of this show was aided considerably by the ALPHA BANK Collection, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, the Spyropoulos Museum, the Maria Dimitriadi Collection, the Florica Kyriacopoulos Collection, the ‘Ileana Tounta’ Centre for Contemporary Art, the Cultural Services of the Cypriot Ministry of Education, the Hellenic-American Union and the Zacharias Portalakis Collection.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in German and English and will run through to October 15, the closing day of the international fair.