Dimitris Mytaras was a Greek artist who is considered one of the important Greek painters of the 20th century.
His work was mainly inspired by the human figure, and a combination of naturalism and expressionism. From the 1960s onward, Mytaras moved in the direction of naturalism, while from 1975 an expressionistic approach became more and more marked in his output.
Dimitris Mytaras was born in 1934 in Chalkis. From 1953 till 1957, Mytaras studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Yiannis Moralis. Later on he studied stage design at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. From 1964 till 1972, he directed the Interior Decoration Workshop of the Athens Technological Institute. Since 1975 he has been teaching at the Painting Workshop of the Athens School of Fine Arts. Mytaras has participated in more than 30 international group shows, including the 1972 Venice Biennale. Mytaras died on 16 February 2017 following major health complications, He was 83.
Jannis Kounellis ( was a Greek-Italian contemporary artist based in Rome.He studied in art college in Athens until 1956 and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome.
In 1967, Kounellis became associated with Arte Povera, a movement theorized by curator Germano Celant as a major shift from work on flat surfaces to installations. Kounellis participated in the exhibition ‘Arte Povera – e IM Spazio’ at the La Bertesca Gallery in Genoa curated by Germano Celant, which brought together artists whose work was concerned with the space between art and life, and nature and culture. Examples of artists who substantiated this basis of Arte Povera as a movement include Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali and Emilio Prini. To solidify the movement, Germano Celant curated another group show, ‘Arte Povera’, which was exhibited at the De’ Foscherari gallery in Bologna in 1968 with similar artists; . In the same year Kounellis exhibited ‘Senza titolo (Untitled)’, which consisted of raw wool, rope and a wooden structure all leaning against a wall. Finally, Kounellis was also included in ‘RA3 Arte Povera + Azioni povere’ which was organized by Marcello Rumma and curated by Germano Celant.
In 1967, Kounellis installed “live birds in cages along with rose-shaped, cloth cut-outs pinned to canvas” alongside his painting. Through this shift in his work, “Kounellis was more interested in anarchical freedom from linguistic norms and conventional materials. The space of the gallery and the exhibition site in general were transformed into a stage where real life and fiction could join in a suspension of disbelief.”The viewers became part of the scene of these living natural sources of energy within the gallery space. He continued his involvement with live animals later in 1969, when he exhibited twelve living horses, as if they were cars, in the Galleria l’Attico’s new location in an old garage in Via Beccaria. Gradually, Kounellis introduced new materials, such as propane torches, smoke, coal, meat, ground coffee, lead, and found wooden objects into his installations. He also looked beyond the gallery environment to historical (mostly industrial) sites. In 1997, Kounellis installed thirteen wardrobes and two doors that were sealed in lead along a scaffolding ledge that blocked the entry to a central hall. In 1968, in an interview by Marisa Volpi, Kounellis stated that incidental adjustments are certain as aspects that can indicate the human liberty of life.
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