Opening: Thursday 20 May 2024, 20:00

The MOMus, as a custodian of the work of the internationally renowned artist Ira Waldron, presents the first posthumous exhibition of her oeuvre at the MOMus-Museum Alex Mylona in Athens. Paintings, porcelain sculptures, textile compositions, prints based on graphic design, artworks on the whole and in their essence profoundly political make up Ira Waldron's life's body of work, in the exhibition entitled "Circles that never close", which will be presented from 20 June to 30 August 2024 at the MOMus-Museum Alex Mylona (Thissio, Athens).

Ira Walrdron (1957-2023) is one of the foremost examples of a truly international artist who never settled for any artistic or stylistic stereotype. An artist who explored many different means of expression, choices, and perspectives, Waldron viewed history, society, and the art market, as well as all other aspects of art, through a very sensitive perspective.

Since the mid-1980s she had worked professionally in London, Moscow and Paris. With exhibitions in Western Europe and Russia and participation in numerous international projects, her works are included in public museum and private collections. Using a variety of media, including painting, installations, photographs, silkscreens, anthropomorphic porcelain and embroidery, she addresses social, political, religious and sexual issues that transcend conventions and prejudices in a radical way and with dark humour. Humour, playfulness and boldness are characteristics that structurally run through her oeuvre.

As a creator and as a member of a wider international artistic community in more than one countries (Russia, UK, France as an artist belonging to the larger international art community (in Russia, Great Britain, France), felt effortlessly and fearlessly at home everywhere, moving with her quirky sense of humour seamlessly between expressive media, techniques, materials, and styles, ultimately being a purely conceptual artist.

The exhibition honours this important artist and reintroduces her to the Greek and international public, while at the same time it attempts to assess and present her unique artistic personality through works from her early, middle and late creative life. 

At the same time, it highlights her major donation of some 300 works to MOMus, which was completed shortly before her death in 2023. Many of these works are presented in this exhibition, with the unstinting assistance and ever-creative spirit of Ira Waldron's husband, Simon Waldron. 

Her artworks are included in public and private collections, including the French Centre Pompidou, the Tretyakov State Gallery and the National Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow, the State Museum of Russia in St. Petersburg, and the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki. Ira Waldron had participated in exhibitions in Thessaloniki, including the 2018 solo exhibition "Interstices" at the Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki (now MOMus-Experimental Center for the Arts).

The exhibition is the second production by MOMus-Museum Alex Mylona in 2024 under the “Four Women Artists-Four Attitudes” series, which features women artists and curators.

Curated by: Areti Leopoulou, art historian-MOMus curator

Ira Waldron donation, © MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art