Mykonos, Greece, Crisis, Art, what do they all mean. You find yourself amidst an artistic platform.

Alice in crisis land is now you. You enter two villages, haunted, Mykonos is outside falling in love,getting sold, bought, dancing, getting drunk and dizzy. In here it's cool, on each floor the cycladic light is getting brighter. What were you looking for? The vast shadow of thought, comfort in art and its coolnes even humour, a self moving sensation among humanoids and rabbit holes. Run away from the electronic Cyclades by Cacao Rocks, try to hide in Petridis' photos, the donkeys are staring at you with their large eyes, you can't. Honey; Love; Pheromenes, someone had once sculpted an artwork for you on the sand, the waves swiped it away. What are you searching for? LEtGΟ screams a sign by Foka, you are in Mykonos, welcome.

“We are emerging” Marina tells me humbly – Marina Vranopoulou is the curator and an artist, creator of the artistic platform Two Villages in Mykonos. It is and it isn't true. They started this dialogue last year, did not know if they would be a response. There was. A great one. What does Mykonos mean and what does Greece mean, crisis, art, pleasure and repression. This year they continue the dialogue with great momentum, with force.

This year for the first time there is photography: Paris Petridis' donkeys are seeking you out through their large eyes, you cannot hide. For the first time also street art: in his own exhibition “Les cyclades electroniques” Cacao Rocks explores and reinvents the Cyclades in a diary inspired by the poetry of Elytis and Seferis accompanied by french electronica. The artist first drew the landscapes he was interested in, then he photographed them and then through the photos' negatives tried to find out the movement of colours: black and white, golf and blue. There is something unexpectedly familiar in these artworks. Bits and pieces from islands, cobbled streets, like the negatives of a picture you took a very long time ago.

This year, there is also Taylor McKimens: the artist who this September presented an impressive series of his works at The Hole in Manhattan. His work is based on the study and the presentation of two Greek sculptures situated at the Metropolitan museum. He continues in this line of work during his two month stay between Athens and Mykonos as a guest of Two Villages.

This year there are more interesting exhibitions: At “Incognito”, Ilias Kafouros tells the tale of globalization in everyday life, questioning the meaning behind identity forgery and manipulation of attention.

This year there are also two women curators: guests and hosts, they compose and curate for Two Villages. Two rare and unique personal exhibitions. In both their cores there is Mykonos as inspiration and contemplation field. Rallou Panagiotou is inspired by the island's nonchalance and sensuality curating the group exhibition “honey; love; pheromenes”, which is the artistic equivalent of wet salty hair and minor sunburns in need of yogurt and siesta. Among the works there is butter and Nivea cream, carved driftwood and magazine cutouts, puzzles of suntanned bodies lying around, ice-creams and money, hair and dust, landscapes and feelings.

The exquisite Maria Brito narrates “Greek Gotham”. She searches through the works of 15 artists for the invisible coordinates connecting ancient Athens to New York, the ancient Greek Classic world to the the heart of modern day coexistence of civilizations. What binds these two centers together? Which concepts deeply rooted in the ancient Greek culture have influenced and still influence to this day our lives, our art and our thinking? Each of these fifteen participating artists in “Greek Gotham” tries to feel for the sense of an English word with ancient Greek origins and their meaning which has been consistent in the last 25 centuries: geometry and stoicism, polyphony and comedy, satire, metaphysics, democracy and dialectics, among others. “Greek gotham”, is a group exhibition and a spiritual alchemy that makes so much more sense after the sun sets, according to the curator. “After the sun sets is when Two Villages resembles New York: the outside noise, the encounters and the pleasures echo inside and reflect on the artworks. The outside world is a huge diverse crowd which however has agreed to another level of freedom”.

This year books and drinks: the Two Villages start their own publishing program with “Greek Gotham” and launch their own terrace art bar: from above the houses of Chora resemble small sugar cubes and Olga Miliares's installations light all aspects of the island.

This year, Two Villages emerge. And among them the multifaceted Mykonos with yet another face – this of an artistic destination. What do you do now? You LEtGΟ screams the sign by Foka, you are in Mykonos, welcome.

Rallou Panagiotou, June – July 2016 Two Villages, Mykonos

Rallou Panagiotou curates a group exhibition of Greek and foreign artists whohave strong ties with the art scene in Glascow. Panagiotou is inspired by the intense sensuality and noncahlance of summer. The exhibiton by the Polish Honza Zamojski will be the result of thw artist's on the scene research in August in Mykonos.
This will be the second time Two Villages invite the artist to Greece to create art through personal experience. The art works will enrich the cultural kaleidoscope that is Mykonos.

Zamojski deals with conflict as an individual state of minf and body and as a permanent state in the world.