Awaiting the ''NEON'' Athens National Gardens in May 2014
The National Gardens of Athens are located next to the Greek Parliament and cover an area of 155 acres in total, extending to the south towards Zappeion Megaron and the Kallimarmaro Panathenaic Stadium.
The famous American writer Henry Miller had once quoted about the National Gardens of Athens: ''This park remains in my memory more than any other park I've ever visited before in my life. The essence of a park is to bring you a notion that you are looking at a painting or that you are dreaming, or even that one is at a place where he cannot ever actually go''.
Up until 1974 the gardens were referred to as the ''Royal Garden'', while the main entrance remains in Amalias Avenue which takes its name from Queen Amalia who initially envisioned the gardens.
At the southern part of the gardens, one will come across the marble busts of Ioannis Kapodistrias, of the Greek national poet Dionysios Solomos, of Aristotelis Valaoritis and that of the philhellene Jean Gabriel Eynard.
The landscape architect Louis Benech from France and his team, in collaboration with the Greek firm doxiadis+ have undertaken the project concerning the transformation of the National Gardens of Athens into an outdoor gallery, thus, an ''open'' museum which will be hosting works of contemporary art. The purpose of the whole redevelopment of the gardens is to demonstrate their historical importance but also, at the same time, to create the appropriate conditions where artwork by significant Greek and foreign artists can be exhibited.
NEON Organisation for Contemporary Art submitted its program for the project ''Discovering the National Gardens'' which aims at the attraction of citizens and visitors of the city towards contemporary art and the transformation of the National Gardens into a marvelous meeting place and a point of entertainment throughout the day. The program is divided into 2 parts. The first part involves the formation of eight distinct sites within the gardens and the second part involves the placement of works of art which will be exhibited within the natural surroundings of the park.
The first exhibition of contemporary art is planned for May 2014 with a duration of two months and will be supervised by Iwona Blazwick OBE, Director of the Whitechapel Gallery - London.
