Parallel Actions

The Catalogue Raisonné, by Prof. Nano Chatzidakis, Icons. The Velimezis Collection, has been presented in several Museums and cultural Institutions, all over the world, during the Exhibitions of the Velimezis Collection.

The CD-ROM ‘The Conservation of Icons in the Velimezis Collection’ created by Stergios Stassinopoulos, was presented at the Courtauld Institute of Art London (1998), at the Dumbarton Oaks – Harvard Univercity, at the Cathedral Centre of New York (1999), as well as alongside the exhibitions of the Collection in foreign museums, such as the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (1999), the Palazzo Querini Stampalia in Venice (2000), the British Library in London (2006), the Κunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna (2007), the Library of Alexandria (2008) and many other cultural agencies in Greece and abroad.

As collaborations with museums abroad expanded and proliferated at rapid pace, they prompted the study of corresponding collections of Post – Byzantine icons in cities whose museums were hosting our exhibitions, by organizing conferences, colloquia and lectures. In this spirit the following actions were organized:

Series of educational and information programmes for exhibition visitors, who also had the opportunity to purchase in the Museum shops the catalogues of the Velimezis Collection, as well as merchandise from the shops of the Benaki Museum in Athens.

The Symposium In Memory of Manolis Chatzidakis, in the Kunsthalle of Recklinghausen (29 & 30 September 1998) by Dr Eva Haustein-Bartsch and Prof. Nano Chatzidakis, with the participation of eminent Greek and German Byzantinists.

Lectures on more general subjects, always with the Velimezis Collection as axis, such as the lectures delivered by Niki Koutrakou in Nice, France, by Aspassia Papadoperaki in Frankfurt, Germany, and others.

The Exhibition and the Symposium La Grecia nelle raccolte della Fondazione Querini Stampalia comprising historical material and maps from the archives of the Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, in Venice, 2000.

Visits to museums and historical sites in the cities hosting our exhibitions, for the many Greek friends who accompanied the works in the Collection on their travels (an average of 30-50 persons per trip).

Concerts of Byzantine music, performed by the choir of Lykourgos Angelopoulos, which were held in the Archaeological Society at Athens, the chapel of Santa Agatha in Barcelona, the Museo de Santa Cruz in Toledo, the Bode-Museum/Pergamon-Museum in Berlin and the Arsenal of the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Cracow.

On 17 March 1999, the Direction of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Barcelona), in collaboration with the Benaki Museum, presented in the Athenian Instituto Cervantes the above Museum to the Greek audience for the first time.

On 16 May 2007, the Goethe Institute in Athens hosted an event to mark the sixteenth anniversary of the Velimezis Collection Project. The director of the Sculpture Collection of the Museum of Byzantine Art of the State Museums of Berlin, Professor Dr Arne Effenberger, in collaboration with the director of the Goethe Institute in Athens and the director of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture in Berlin Dr E. Oikonomou, presented to an Athenian audience the exhibition ‘Der Glanz des Himmels. Griechische Ikonen der Sammlung Velimezis’, which was taking place in the Pergamon Museum of Berlin at the time.

On 25 February 2011, the Directorate of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic (Ambassador I. Oikonomou), the Benaki Museum (Professor A. Delivorrias) and the Russian Centre of Science and Culture (Ambassador Vl. Chkhikvishvili, embassy counsellor A. Khomenko) organized in the amphitheatre of the Ministry an event appraising the exhibitions of the Velimezis Collection in the State Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg and the Pushkin State Museum of Moscow. As follow up, the director of the Benaki Museum gave a long interview on Greek National Television about the ‘Journey of the Icons of the Velimezis Collection’.