Rizarios Exhibition Center
The Rizarios Exhibition and Meeting Center (map location 9) is located in Monodendri, Zagori and has been operating since the summer of 2000. It is a modern Center, housed in the fully renovated and remodeled Mansion Pantazi, co-funded by the cross-border Interreg II Programme and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. The activities of this Center are aimed at both the Greek and the inter-Balkan area and the events hosted there so far, radually evolve it into a center of photographic heritage and tradition.
The Pantazi Mansion was built around 1900 and is one of the most beautiful examples of the architecture of Zagori.
The imposing two-storey house stands out for its elaborate stonework, the high stone enclosure and the paved courtyards. It has utility rooms on the lower floor and basements, as well as spacious infrastructure spaces and many windows on the second floor. The role of the old Zagorian “bed” has been abolished and simpler wooden ceilings are retained with a cooler interior style, white walls, light colours and some classicist elements.
Similar imposing buildings can be found in almost all the villages of Western, Central and Eastern Zagori.
Exhibition
The Rizarios Exhibition Center of Monodendri presents the PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION Fred Boissonnas: Images of Greece, Collection of the Rizarios Foundation. On the occasion of the reissue of the album of the same name, 90 black and white photographs, many of them for the first time, from the artist’s travels in Greece in the period 1903-1913, are on display, including images from Epirus, the Ionian Islands, Attica, Attica, Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, Thessaly, etc.
Fred Boissonnas, from his first trip to our country in 1903, was impressed by the colour and smells of nature, the play of light, the antiquities and the people. The artist tames all these elements, diffused in an atmosphere of lyrical disorder, in his creations with Doric simplicity and Greek symmetry, while highlighting light as one of their primary elements.
With tireless passion the Swiss traveller photographs Greece and under difficult conditions, carrying equipment and materials on mules, he takes 7000 shots on glass plates, sketching the profile of the country. Publishing about ten albums on Greece, he introduces the Greek culture to the West. The idea and the realization of the whole project was carried by the late Angelos Kitsos.
Previous exhibitions
The Rizarios Exhibition Center of Monodendri has hosted numerous photographic exhibitions of internationally renowned artists, whose work and standings have highlighted and made known to the world our cultural heritage, the greatness of our people and the beneficial energy of the brightness that prevails in Greece.
- “A Greek Portfolio” by the renowned Greek-American artist Konstantinos Manos, (August 2000)
- “Life of Zagorizia” by anonymous and eponymous photographers with material from the period 1890 – 1940 (January 2001)
- “Images of Greece” by Fred Boissonnas, with rich photographic evidence (August 2001)
- “Russia 100 years – photographic evidence” (January 2002)
- “The Europeans” by Henri Cartier Bresson (August 2003)
- “Greece 1896-1906 – Images from stereoscopic photographs” (August 2004)
- “Greece of Mochthos 1900-1960” (August 2005)
- “Willy Ronis – Following chance” (August 2006)
- “Shadows of Silence” by Yannis Dimos (March 2006)
- “Images from Greek Cinema 1923-1998” (January 2007)
- “On the Road to Greece” by Robert McCabe” (August 2007)
- “Phocaea 1913-1920 – The testimony of Felix Sartiaux” (August 2008)
- “The photographer Voula Papaioannou – 1898-1990” (August 2009)
- “Vassilis Kazakos – Memories from Epirus” (August 2010)
- “Leonidas Papazoglou – Photographic portraits of Kastoria and its region during the Macedonian Struggle. Collection of George Golombia”
- “Once upon a time in Greece” Photo exhibition from the collection of the Rizarios Foundation (December 2011)
- “Ioannina 1913-2013 – A historical walk in the city” (July 2013 – June 2015)
- “Photography Agency D.A.Harisiadis” (August 2014)
- “Zagori: the life of a community” July 2016 – July 2017
- “Athos in eternal form” – From the collection of the monk Gabriel of Mount Athos (July 2017 – July 2018)
- “The Photographer George Seferis” (July 2018 – September 2019)
- “Images of Greece – Fred Boissonnas” (September 2019)
Publishing activities
The publications of the Rizarios Foundation are of particular interest and are recognised as remarkable by the scientific community and some of them are university texts:
- “Zagorochoria”, Greek edition, Athens 1992
- “Ioannina 1890-1950”, Greek-English edition, Athens 1996
- “Fred Boissonas: Icons of Greece”, Greek-English edition, Athens 2001
- “Russia 100 years photographic testimonies”. G.G. Dimou, introduction/texts Aris Marangopoulos, Athens 2002
- “Zagorizia bios – The life of a community”, Greek-English edition, Athens 2003
- “Greece 1896-1906: Images from stereoscopic pictures”, introduction by G. Dimou, Athens 2004.
- “Byron D. Christidis The architecture of central Zagori: the example of Koukoulios”, 2 volumes, Athens 2004
- “The Greece of labour 1900-1960”, collection of Nikos Politis, introduction/texts by Katerina Schina, 1st ed. Athens 2005, 2nd ed. 2008
“Phocaea 1913-1920: The testimony of Felix Sartiaux”, edited by Harris Yakoumis, Greek-French edition, Athens 2008.
“Konstantinos Economos o Ex Economon. The Literary Work. The Theory of Grammatical Arts”. Doctoral dissertation by Ioannis Xourias, Athens 2007.
“Agios Nektarios of Pentapolis and the Rizareios Ecclesiastical School (1894-1908). The intramural and extracurricular activities on the basis of archival sources”. Doctoral dissertation Archimandrite Cleopas Strongylis, Dr. Th. Athens 2008.
“The painting of the houses of Zagori – Late 18th – early 20th century” by Stephanos Tsiodoulou, Athens 2009.
“The local religious painting of the 16th & 17th century in western Zagori”, PhD thesis by Ioannis P. Houliaras, Athens 2009.
“The Western sacrum imperium and the Byzantine Empire. Ideological frictions and interactions in the European political scene of the 12th century”, PhD thesis by Eleni Tounta, Athens 2008.
“Our way”, Prof. Christos V. Massalas.
