Old Fortress of Corfu
10 July to 30 September 2024

The exhibition has been extended until 28 February 2025

 

IASON DEPOUNTIS
“DUE TO YOU, POETRY, TROY IS STILL BURNING”
 

EXHIBITION
DEDICATED TO THE POET, WRITER, PEDAGOGUE

DETAILS

Ελληνικά
Deutsch

Ελληνικά
Deutsch

To commemorate the 15th anniversary of the death of Iason Depountis, one of Greece's most important post-war poets, the Cultural Society ILIOSTASIO, in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Corfu, organises an exhibition on the life and work of this extraordinary artist. The exhibition can be visited at the Old Fortress of Corfu from 10 July 2024 TO 28 February 2025.

Iason Depountis was born in Corfu in 1919. He studied and worked in Athens until 1969, when he was forced to leave the country, due to the imposition of the military dictatorship in Greece. He spent the rest of his life in Switzerland.

His work first appeared in 1944, and he remained creative, unconventional, and restless until his death in 2008 in Zurich. As an intellectual, deeply interested in the arts and sciences, he connected both intellectually and as a friend with Michalis Katsaros, Nikos Karouzos, Nikos Spanias, the engraver from Corfu Nikos Ventouras, Alexandros Argyriou, the author and poet Nikiforos Vrettakos, and Iannis Xenakis.

This exhibition traces the multifaceted work of the poet, essentially in chronological order, introducing themes and motifs as they developed over the passage of time. Simultaneously, it brings forth the special relationships of Iason Depountis with Nikos Ventouras and Nikiforos Vrettakos.

Depountis considered himself a poet, despite the fact that he was also actively engaged in many different forms of writing and expression. Among other things, he wrote prose, essays, undertook studies and translations, and did collage. To him, all of these ultimately fell under one art form, that of poetry.

The wide range of Depountis’ work can be seen in display cases with documents from the Benaki Museum‘s Historical Archive and the Depountis family archive. There are also audiovisual materials, information boards, various personal articles and paintings, including visual art of the poet himself and also of Nikos Ventouras.

The exhibition also contains a series of collages and metatexts, published and unpublished works from the final period of the poet, during which time, the silence of words and the end of the narrative revealed the unified and fluid relationship between the art of the hands, the mind and the universe of Iason Depountis.

A significant part of the exhibit is based on the life and work of Iason Depountis in Switzerland:

• On the 13 years he lived with his wife Anastasia and his son Dimitris, working as a tutor, a teacher, and the Director of the „Greek Home” in the Pestalozzi Children’s Village, raising 40 Greek children in the foothills of the Alps.

• On his translations of the works of important figures in Switzerland.

• On his pieces about Switzerland itself (e.g. “The Call of Democracy”), the country which allowed him to write a large portion of his work, far away from the sad situation in Greece.

• On his active participation in the Greek community of Zurich for approximate 20 years and the various activities that he developed as an intellectual in that same Swiss city, which is also called “The Athens of the River Limmat”.

• On the interest of the Swiss in Depountis’ work, and their recognition of it. The most significant example being in 2009, when his portrait, his biography, and a poem were placed in the permanent exhibition room of the Nietzsche-Haus research centre in the Alpine village of Sils-Maria, among other panels dedicated to Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Pablo Neruda, Hermann Hesse and others.

The poem of Iason Depountis in the "Nietzsche-Haus" in Sils-Maria. It has been placed opposite the entrance to Nietzsche's bedroom, which has been preserved in its original form.

In the extensive historical monograph “Greek-Swiss Relationship, Dialogue with History” (Zurich 2021) the author Ignatios Papadellis dedicates a chapter to Iason Depountis, naming him “one of the three most outstanding Greeks” who, each in his own field, left  their indelible mark and their spiritual footprints in Switzerland, as “Ambassadors of Greece in Switzerland” and as “luminaries”.
 

The exhibition at the Old Fortress of Corfu is both based on a presentation at the historic Palace of Saints Michael and George, organised by the Municipality of Corfu in 2016, and an exhibition at the Municipal Gallery of Piraeus, realised in 2023 by the Municipality of Piraeus and the Cultural Society ILIOSTASIO.

A special feature of the literary magazine “Mandragoras” on the exhibition hosted in Corfu in 2016 (in Greek).

The exhibition at the Municipal Gallery of Piraeus in 2023 (video).

 

Under the aegis
of the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and the Embassy of Switzerland in Greece

 

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