NEON Cultural Organization, in cooperation with the Greek Parliament, has set up a new exhibition in the vast space of the former Public Tobacco Factory on Lenorman Street. The very title of the exhibition (“Dream On”) refers to dreams, not the ones we see in our sleep, but to the “goals, ambitions and visions of the artists”, as the curator, Dimitris Paleokrassas, pointed out.

“Via large-scale installations such as those exhibited here, the artist expresses his creativity in an unbridled way,” the Greek art historian continued.

The 18 artworks that make up the exhibition, including works by Damien Hirst, Martha Dimitropoulou and Thomas Hirschhorn – which opened on June 6 and will run until November 27 – are some of the most important of the 350 works in the donation of the D. Daskalopoulos Collection, which was officially announced last April and has been donated to four major museums in Europe and America.

“These works, which will soon find their new homes, are gathered here in an exhibition in order to “dream” their subsequent course. For me personally, the exhibition marks a turning point in my involvement with art and involves two main elements: on the one hand, the boldness of the artist, which I admire, and on the other hand, the boldness of the collector, which also makes these works so desirable to the museums that will receive them,” said the NEON founder Dimitris Daskalopoulos about “Dream On”.

Although this second collaboration between NEON and the Smokehouse (after last year’s “Gates”) is expected to be a farewell, this does not mean that the space will be “silenced”.

Tasoulas noted that “there is already a sort of ‘queue’ of private and public cultural institutions interested in using the space.”

Additionally, he revealed that the Parliament, in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, is working on a draft for inclusion in the European project “Technical Assistance”, which may yield funds of up to 40 million euros for the further development of the complex, in the context of a bold urban regeneration of the area.

Admission to the exhibition is free by pre-booking at neon.artsvp.co.

This article originally published in Greek at kathimerini.gr.