MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art

Alexandros Iolas's encounter with Thessaloniki was to acquire special significance, not only for the city but also for the posthumous fame of this singularly perceptive collector.

There is nothing in Greece today to recall his inspired and creative sojourn in the country save the collection of the 47 works that he donated a generation ago as a "nucleus" around which to build a museum of contemporary art in this city.

It was with great joy that the board of directors decided to honour him by giving his name to the museum's new three-storey wing and to dedicate to him the catalogue of the permanent collection, which now numbers more than one thousand works (paintings, sculptures, installations, assemblages, engravings, photographs), in the hope that the museum will remain independent, unconventional and open-minded, that is guided by the same principles that characterised Iolas himself.

The formal and conceptual qualities of their work succeed in establishing a dialectic relation with the young students through the museum's educational programmes.

[1] Apart from the permanent display, the museum has mounted over 100 exhibitions of works by Greek and foreign artists: retrospectives of the work of Yannis Tsarouchis, Tsoclis, Photios Kontoglou, Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Kokkinidis, Alekos Fassianos, Aggelika Korovessi, Spyropoulos, Psychopaidis, Pavlos, Kessanlis, Akrithakis, Andy Warhol, Katzourakis and Perdikidis have been held for the first time in Greece; and other exhibitions have been devoted to the works of Fluxus, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Roberto Matta, Viallat, Joseph Beuys, Uecker, David Hockney, Max Ernst, Barlach, Max Beckmann, Vlassis Kaniaris, Takis, Molfessis, Lazongas, Papadimitriou, Stephen Antonakos, Zongolopoulos, Mytaras, Triandafyllou, Ekonomopoulos, Alithinos and many other artists.