The Museum of Modern Greek Culture presents at the Tzisdarakis Mosque, in MonasBraki, one of its flagship exhibiBon venues, the Byronic Heroes exhibiBon, with works by Lydia Venieri, inspired by the heroes and stories of the poems of Lord Byron. It is a body of tableaux vivants, which the arBst has produced in the form of deferred mythopoeBc snapshots: young people, dressed in costumes redolent of the Byronic era, are photographed in constructed idyllic sePngs. The arBst then uses digital means of processing to complete a sensual pseudo-painterly construct.

In the tradiBon of arBsts such as Luigi Ontani and Eleanor AnBn, Venieri studies the elements of the Byronic case and the process of their significaBon in terms of acBng out and enacBng.

As Venieri herself says: “Passion, romance, revoluBon, the need for what we call the truth, combined with a curiosity about the world, an adventurous spirit and a fesBve mood that alternates with a melancholy one, the mathemaBcal feeling that creates archetypal moBfs which recur in fatal people who are not defined by social norms or behaviours and end up as stars, tearing through the layers of existence – all these things are for me the quintessence of my life and work.”

Referring to Venieri’s work, Robert Α. McCabe wrote: “Lord Byron’s poetry is strong in rhythm, music and imagery, and Lydia brings his heroes and heroines to life with an original vision. […] The overall impact is a vivid amplification and enhancement of Byron’s forceful imagery through Lydia’s unique lens”.

Byronic Heroes is the first part of the “Byronic Code”, Lydia Venieri’s magnum opus, which will be shown in its enBrety at the NaBonal Museum of Modern Art in the autumn of 2019.