In a quiet townhouse beside the train tracks in Thiseio, the Bernier/Eliades gallery is hosting the third solo exhibition in Athens of Paolo Colombo, the 76-year-old Italian artist, curator and poet. Titled ‘Music and Mosaics,’ the show runs from September 25 to November 8. The exhibition weaves together watercolors inspired by rebetiko musicians Vassilis Tsitsanis and Yiannis Papaioannou, sound installations of their songs, and mosaics recalling Byzantine fragments. For Colombo, who studied literature in Rome and later directed institutions from Geneva to Istanbul, art is inseparable from memory and music. Though he neither sings nor plays, he stresses, ‘Music is my great love.’ Rebetiko, discovered on his first trip to Greece, became central to his work.
