Many things are changing in Art Athina.

2018 may prove to be a landmark year.

Art Athina is changing its location and moving to the city center. It’s changing its dates of operation, it’s becoming more summery, and is now being registered as the European exhibition with which the season will come to an end.

Apropos all of these changes, which constitute the peak of those that began last year with the total renewal of the organizational team, Art Athina makes its presence visible six months before its opening, with one of its activities, its standard visual weekend of December Gallery Walk.

On the 16th and 17th of December 48 galleries in Athens, Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Patra, Larisa and Veroia, will welcome their art loving audience with extended hours of operation on Saturday and remaining open on Sunday.

The role of the tour guide will be taken, as every year, by the bilingual map (Greek- English) which is designed especially for Gallery Walk and will be distributed in all the galleries participating in the visual walk.

That way whoever wishes to will be able to design their own route in the frame of the festive weekend, aiming to visit as many art halls as possible and to gain a complete image regarding the current direction art is taking.

Gallery Walk is a concurrent activity of the Athenian exhibition, which counts 23 years of presence and is thus one of the longest in Europe.

It becomes the motive for a series of important announcements, which mean the continuation of those changes that began with last year’s organization.

The new location of the 23rd Art Athina will be the Athens Conservatoire, which is strongly associated with culture.

This is because, firstly it is the place of the most ancient musical-theatrical educational institution of modern Greece, and secondly because in the past it has hosted the National Museum of Contemporary Art, activities of the NEON Organization for Culture and Development and finally, was one of the main exhibition spaces of documenta14.

Already since last year, the exhibition is putting the new changes into function in the city center – making it therefore easily accessible - through the schedule that the artistic director of Art Athina, Stamatia Dimitrakopoulou, and the organization team are designing, and which will be announced gradually until the start of the 23rd Art Athina.

More changes will take place regarding the time and duration of the exhibition.

From this year it becomes a summer event and is extended by one day, welcoming the friends of art to the largest visual festival of the year from Wednesday 20th of June until Sunday 24th of June 2018.

Gallery Walk is held by the Hellenic Art Galleries Association PSAT and produced by the company Be Best which is in charge of the production of Art Athina as well.

Gallery Walk is happening under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, the Attica Region, the Municipality of Athens and the Municipality of Thessaloniki.