SYRAGO TSIARA
Director of National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum
She was appointed as director of the National Gallery Alexandros Soutsos Museum in July 2022 with a five-year tenure.
Born in Larissa in 1968, she studied History and Archaeology at the Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1985 – 1989).
She completed postgraduate studies in the Social History of Art at the University of Leeds. Master’s thesis: Orientalism and National Difference.
She wrote her PhD Thesis on the role of public sculpture on the formation of national identity and was awarded a doctorate of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2000.
In 2002 she occupied the position of art historian / curator at the State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki with the main task of research, study, documentation and exhibition organization of the Costakis Collection of the Russian Avant-garde in Greece and abroad. At the same time, she taught “Public Art”, “Introduction to Theory and Methodology of Art”, “Modern and historical Avant-garde movements”, at the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly (2003 – 2006).
From 2007 to 2020 she took over the direction of the Contemporary Art Center of the State Museum of Contemporary Art.
From 2017 to 2022 she directed the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art.
From 2018 to 2022 she directed the MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections.
In 2009 she co-curated together with Bisi Silva and Gabriela Salgado the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art “Praxis. Art in times of Uncertainty”.
She was the curator of the Greek Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale and assumed the duties of national commissioner at the 58th Venice Biennale.
In 2019 she worked together with Dimitris Antonakakis in the direction of the National Museum of Contemporary Art for the opening of EMST to the public. In the same year, she completed the curation and the re-exhibition of the permanent collection at the Municipal Gallery of Larissa – Katsigras Museum.
In total, she has curated over 50 art exhibitions in Greece and abroad, organizes and/or participates in conferences, delivers courses, writes and publishes essays and books. She also gives lectures mainly on issues of relations between art and politics, memory, identity, curatorial practices and the connection between contemporary art, archaeological sites and the public sphere.
