Barbara Kruger: Untitled (Pride and Contempt)

Περιγραφή στα Αγγλικά

Walk the perimeter of the National Library at the SNFCC and the building does not read as a building any more. Black, white, and green declarations cover the façade, paragraph-long sentences in Barbara Kruger's stark sans-serif: "Watch the moment when pride becomes contempt" runs ninety metres along the wall. This is Untitled (Pride and Contempt), Kruger's first solo exhibition in Greece, a thirteen-work commission for the SNFCC's outdoor spaces.

Kruger, working with the same grammar she developed in the early 1980s — slogans appropriated from advertising and aimed back at the systems that produced them — has written here for the first time in Greek. Phrases like "BAD IS GOOD" and "TRUTH IS FICTION" sit alongside the title work in the high-contrast palette she has used for four decades. The pieces wrap walls, columns, and pathways across the cultural centre's grounds.

If you came for a quiet gallery hour with wall text and a guard's footsteps, this is not that show. The works are outdoor and they compete with weather, jets overhead, and the runners on the Esplanade — text-as-architecture rather than text-on-a-frame. But if you want to see what political art looks like when it is the surface you walk along, the centre is open.

The exhibition opened on 28 April and runs through 1 November 2026 — about five months remain. Admission is open. SNFCC sits south of central Athens, accessible by tram from the city centre or by city bus from Syntagma. The works spread across the outdoor grounds, so wear walking shoes; the whole loop takes longer than a single room would.

First time Kruger has written for Greek — and the language sits on the building until November.