Greek Australian wealth needs, in my view, to be better converted into cultural patronage and institutional influence. There are positive signs of second-generation scions supporting Hellenic endeavours. However, there is less evidence, or visible evidence, of that support extending to our nation’s and its cities’ mainstream cultural and arts institutions and industries. Although many Greeks occupy spaces in that creative industry – from architecture, to filmmaking, performance, music, visual arts to arts management and curation.
New World, Old World
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is laden with Classical Greek, Cypriot and Byzantine collections. The Met’s first port of call is its Classical Greek collection; it is what millions of visitors first see as they enter.
Take a few steps beyond and you’re in the Byzantium collection; to the side, Jewish; then Roman and Egyptian, and so on.
The Met includes collections of African, Asian and Islamic art, but it is its collection of Hellenic art and culture that serves as a basis for its understanding of the art of the great republic, America, and the ‘West’.
In Australia, which of our collecting institutions have substantial Hellenic collections? I haven’t audited them, but the major Greek, Roman and other antiquities are nigh impossible to secure, and the lion’s share are in European, British and North American collecting institutions.
The absent patrons
It seems wealthy Greek Australian citizens are less inclined to act as financiers for touring Greek collections than they are in other countries. There’s less ambiguity at the Met, where wealthy Greek patrons fund major Hellenic collections, such as the Jaharis family funded the Byzantine art collection. Where are the Greek patrons’ names at the NGV in Melbourne, the Arts Centre, Opera House, Museum of Contemporary Art, and so on? There are many Greek creatives, curators, producers and so on – but where’s the cash?
The Hellenic Museum was a dream of millionaire businessman, the late Spiros Stamoulis. The Stamoulis scion, Harry Stamoulis, has heavily supported the project, since 2008. Located in the heritage-listed former Royal Mint building in William Street, Melbourne, the work it does is excellent, and in the last 10 years it has dramatically increased its relevance and visitation.
It is excellent to see the Stamoulis family promoting Hellenic culture. My question is: why isn’t that patronage by wealthy Greeks, also pronounced within our mainstream cultural institutions? Government arts funders see the Hellenic Museum as a “community museum”. The first time the Hellenic Museum secured funding from the Victorian Government, it was from multicultural affairs. Why not Creative Victoria?
Back to the centre
In 2022, the brilliantly curated Open Horizons: Ancient Greek Journeys and Connections was presented at the Melbourne Museum – a collaboration between Melbourne Museum and Greece’s National Archaeological Museum of Greece. The exhibition brought 44 ancient artefacts to Australia for the first time, spanning from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman period. Highlights included a 2,500-year-old marble sphinx, Ethiopian-Hellenic syncretic art from 530 BCE, the statue of Hermaphroditus and more. It also engaged the whole Greek community by presenting, in dramatic family photos, the process of our migration here.
The program was facilitated by the Greek Community of Melbourne, an supported by the Victorian Government. Ultimately, it was supported by thousands of Greek Australians visiting the institution across generations.
Yet, it took deft handling by some extraordinary directors in the Museum, the GCM and others to get museum curators on board. Why? Simple: Greeks had retreated from the centre of the nation’s culture. We are located in tropes as the mainstream anchors itself on distant Hellenic foundations, without us.
While producing great programs, from festivals to music, theatre and cinema and so on, we are largely absent from the centre. That would not be the case if the wealthy of our community had their names emblazoned on annexes of institutions and sat on their boards due to their largesse.
Where were the Greeks?
Take the example of Temple of Boom in 2022, the NGV’s Architecture Commission, a contemporary “reimagining” of the Parthenon, “challenging the popular image of ancient Greek temples as plain white marble”.
The project was designed by architects Adam Newman and Kelvin Tsang, who drew on archaeological evidence showing that the original Parthenon was vividly painted in bright colours.
Great program. Yet, if it was not for the advocacy of Neos Kosmos, which saw one Greek in one talk, again the Greeks were absent from their own party. Scholars such as Andrew Jamieson discussed the history and significance of the Parthenon, and explored how modern architecture and archaeology can reshape our understanding of the ancient Greek world, but with no Greeks around.
That is not the fault of the NGV nor the architects of the program. The blame lies squarely on the limited impact our powerful and wealthy community members have beyond the necessary and often hard-fought lobbying for support for our schools, aged care, welfare programs and festivals from government.
There are many, or enough wealthy Greeks, in our community, where are they? Imagine the Temple of Boom with Greek musicians, DJs, youth involvement from our Greek schools, discussions by Greeks and non-Greeks on Greece, its architecture and art and its impact, not then but now, and here.
Amplify impact here
In one of the world’s largest Greek-speaking cities, Melbourne, we need to ensure that the Greek diaspora’s ancient and contemporary arts are central to the state’s and the nation’s cultural life.
The wealthy could also assist in bringing contemporary interpretations of Greek music, film, visual arts and dance which have been making waves across the Europe, North America and Asia. But not here.
Performers like Greek rebeto-rapper, Negros tou Moria, or choreographers like Dimitris Papaioannou, who is internationally renowned for his visually striking dance-theatre works like The Great Tamer, presented and supported by Onassis Stegi and toured globally. Chara Kotsali, is known for experimental performance and movement-based works that have gained international attention. Where are they?
Why not a retrospective of the work of the late Stelios Faitakis and his Byzantine-style icons and murals could be a major coup for any of our big visual arts institutions. Faitakis’ works are about life in Athens, circa 2010-2017, the riots, the refuigee crisis, the breakdown, the junkies, yuppies, the rich and poor. Faitakis was presented in the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Venice Biennale, in Mechelen, Belgium, and the Freie Muenchner und Deutsche Kuenstlerschaft, Munich, among others. What of The Erasers, an enigmatic, subversive ensemble of cinema and internet artists that began life in the watershed Destroy Athens festival of 2007?
This is the time
Yes, many Greek Australians have made inroads into the arts, commerce, science, academia and politics, but Hellenic culture and the community’s endeavours are not, in my view, fully realised in Australia’s cultural institutions.
The ancient Hellenic vase depicting Ethiopian and Hellenic faces, and the statue of Hermaphroditus – all dating back at least to 600 BCE – did more to build cross-cultural awareness of diversity among ethnicities and genders among conservative Greek families than any government campaign. We need to take to our hearts the Aristotelian notion of the ‘intrinsic good’.
