National Hellenic Museum Features Art from Prince Nikolaos of Greece

“If you deconstruct Greece, you will see in the end an olive tree, a grapevine, and a boat remain. That is, with as much, you reconstruct her.” HRH Prince Nikolaos of Greece always considered this quote from Nobel Prize-winning poet Odyssseas Elytis to be unique to his country.

“Greeks throughout time have been resilient. We’ve gone through civil wars, wars, famines and we’ve always bounced back,” he said while guiding a tour of his photographic exhibit, “Resilience” at the National Hellenic Museum in Greektown.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and the strict Greek lockdown, which Prince Nikolaos anticipated by getting his cameras ready.

“I realized ‘resilience’ applied not just to the Greeks, but to everyone, all over the world. Front line workers: it would be obvious when they would take a break and leave the hospital they would always stand by a tree. Nature herself was alleviating the pressures of the pandemic and Nature herself also became resilient when we left her alone for three months, for six months. She got revitalized. We had an abundance of fish off the coast of Athens which we didn’t used to have. Some of the fish, which would normally be seasonal, were non-seasonal because of just the six months. And the quality of the air was much better.”

The National Hellenic Museum (NHM) celebrates its grand reopening with the world premiere of “Resilience,” which continues through December 30. An accomplished photographer who has exhibited his work internationally since 2015, Prince Nikolaos presents 19 new works that explore Greece’s strong relationship with nature and environmental preservation. Separate facets of the exhibit include “Sea Cred,” a photographic mosaic printed onto 272 credit cards made of upcycled ocean plastic debris, inspired by a World Wildlife Fund study that found humans could be consuming an average of 5 grams of plastic every week (the equivalent weight of a credit card); and the North American premiere of “Together,” an immersive scene of illuminated olive trees accompanied by the nighttime sounds of Greek nature, which first premiered at the London Design Biennale in 2021.

“Greece’s past, present and future is intertwined and inextricably linked with nature. The recent pandemic has changed how we view the physical world and our space within it and has forced us to go back to our origins to find inspiration,” said Marilena Koutsoukou, curator of “Resilience,” in prepared material. “As an artist, Prince Nikolaos is always drawn to open spaces, and nature has been an integral theme and presence in his work. With this exhibition, he turns his lens to the Greek earth. Like an archaeologist meticulously excavating, recording, and drawing conclusions, he attempts to deconstruct and explore our collective experience with a new normal, a shared belief that we must let go of our past ways and find ways to celebrate and protect nature, and eventually, ourselves.”

The opening photo in the exposition is “Resilience,” which depicts the blue-and-white striped Greek flag as bands of waves and clouds. Others in this series include “Seaing Green” and the Athens “Acropolis.” Both scenes are printed onto aluminum and then shot through water; they are recognizable for their color, but also abstract because of the overlaid ripples.

The photos accentuate the colors the prince saw in the water: blue, green, gold, red. Depending on the angle of the sun on the body of water, they can change.

“All of this could be done with Photoshop, with filters as everyone today has on their iPhone. I like to get the colors naturally, although I have interfered with nature by putting something into a body of water. The original color is nature’s and that is the color I was seeing when I was taking a picture. In order to get this sort of thing, I had to zoom in really close or use a massive lens.”

The wine series depicts harvested grapes in a big vat and the movement of a churning machine. Olive branches are photographed through olive oil in “Golden Pride” and as a gleaming stream in “Purity.”

“Splash of Gold,” meanwhile, is a stop-action photo, almost sculptural. “I was pouring and shooting at the same time. It made me very unpopular with my wife, (Princess Tatiana) because it made the balcony filthy, but she forgave me.”

Born in Rome, Prince Nikolaos was raised in London, home schooled and then educated at the Hellenic College of London and Brown University. He worked in television and banking before becoming a business consultant. As a photographer, he has exhibited in London, Athens, Copenhagen, Melbourne and Doha.

“Sea Cred” came about after Prince Nikolaos visited remote islands with a volunteer organization he has that brings specialist doctors to islands that have only basic medical care. He saw the plastic trash, not generated locally, but coming in with the tide. A partnership with Parley for the Oceans, “Sea Cred’s” medium is Parley’s trademark plastic, upcycled ocean debris from remote beaches, mangroves, and coastal communities. that pays just 1 euro in operational costs for every 22 portions of food served; it achieves this by flipping the logistics, according to vogue.com. Instead of paying for warehouses or delivery trucks, Bourome coordinates with recipients, who pick up food directly from donors (StreetWise January 2017).

“Together,” created for the London Bienale, is the finale of the exhibition. Prince Nikolaos found these two wild olive trees, not part of a cultivated grove, alone on a cliff on the island of Milos. “Without trying to sound sexist, this is the male approaching and this is the female, and she says, ‘try harder.’” The trees’ roots are interconnected, as are their branches overhead.

The prince went back on a still day in February and shot the trees in 18 sections so he could marry all the images and blow them up to show each leaf in perfect detail. Then, he inverted the image so that the shadowed portions of the tree became brightly lit, as if from the inside. He added the sounds of a Greek evening: cicadas, a bird’s mating call and the female’s responding whistle.

“When I had the exhibition in London, my most satisfying thing, my favorite stamp of approval, was when I found kids lying on the floor with their backpacks as cushions, just sitting there, chilling. That, for me, is the whole effect. I want people to be mesmerized, to take time out from all the craziness that’s going on outside and to be transported to a place that is peaceful, calm and where you can reflect.”

The National Hellenic Museum is located at 333 S. Halsted St. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday. Tickets to the museum are $10 and include admission to all exhibits. Discounts are available for seniors, students and children. “Resilience” is sponsored by NHM Trustee John S. Koudounis.