Thursday, May 24
at Laiki Bank Cultural Centre – Byron Avenue Museum
Recurring event
“Art Is... The Art of Cyprus through the Ages. Selections from the Marfin Laiki Bank Collections”For the years 2010-2012 the Marfin Laiki Bank Cultural Centre is presenting at the Byron Avenue Museum the exhibition “Art Is... The Art of Cyprus through the Ages”. It is a beautifully stylised presentation on the evolution of Cypriot art from antiquity to the present day, through a definitive selection from the Bank’s Collections.The exhibition is accompanied by a museum educational programme for children. From the start of the programme, the children walk into an environment where art has “descended” from the wall and is part of their surroundings. They come into contact with ancient, ethnographic and contemporary works of many styles, but also with the ultimate meaning of art: That Art is that we create our own inspiration. The program iscomplemented by a film as a visual game of images and music... What is Art?The journey in order to discover the art of Cyprus begins in an archaic art gallery, where children examine ancient artifacts and compare them to modern art that coexist in the same place. They then go into the Byzantine and Medieval gallery with Christian frescoes and mosaic artwork, where children discover modern paintings hidden in a rotating cube game inspired by art of the Byzantine era.With stories of the Frankish courts of Cyprus children move into the Middle Ages where art takes the form of royal costumes with gold embroidery and jewels that turn clothes into works of art. They then go into the Ottoman and Colonial periods of Cyprus, where they see furniture, jewellery and folk art, where art is part of our everyday environment and where contemporary works of art reflect the world ofCyprus. Finally the children explore the art of the 20th century. From art in Nature, they create a tree sculpture dedicated to the "Four Seasons", to the human figure in art, where they construct their own portrait.
