Move aside Basel, Hydra is where the art world lets its hair down

“DESTE” means “to look” in Greek, and it’s also the name of the foundation established in 1983 by mega-collector Dakis Joannou to promote international contemporary art and explore its crossover with fashion and design. It’s become a ritual, an annual rendez-vous for art professionals and lovers alike to gather in Greece each June for DESTE’s summer openings.

It usually takes place the same weekend Art Basel wraps up, giving fair-weary visitors a chance to swap champagne and booths for souvlaki and sea. Unwind. Reset. In the Swiss art capital, everyone talks about ‘being invited by Dakis’ — though, as he likes to remind them, the invitation is open to all.

This year, the DESTE trail had two stops. First: Saturday afternoon at the Benaki Museum’s outpost on Pireos Street in Athens, a cultural staple known for bridging the past with a contemporary edge. The city is melting in the heat, with boiling asphalt and blinding light, but once you enter the atrium, it’s like stepping into a shaded village square with a modern twist. It’s cooler here. In temperature and attitude.

I’m here for ‘In a Bright Green Field’, a group exhibition co-organised by DESTE and the New Museum. It’s the third show in their ongoing collaboration and brings together 29 young Greek and Cypriot artists “who are particularly attentive to local histories and the ways in which they are useful for thinking through larger global challenges,” curator Gary Carrion-Murayari tells me.

I wander the show, letting connections form between lyrical paintings, tactile sculptures, experimental films, and performance remnants. There’s a shared thread here, an attention to materiality and reimagining. It’s a show that doesn’t shout but simmers.

The exhibition opens with a punch: four vibrant paintings by Ioanna Limniou. Raised in rural Northern Greece, Limniou paints everyday scenes — kids playing, couples embracing, farmers at work — capturing a kind of mythic tenderness in ordinary gestures. She observes the land and becomes its narrator.

Right beside her is Dwellings by Maria Loizou, a series of sculptures I want to touch or wear. She weaves beeswax strips into what resemble garments. Think Bottega Veneta’s intrecciato, but softer, sweeter, and slightly uncanny. The wax glows under the lights, delicate yet solid. They hang on coat stands like second skins waiting for bodies.

In the next room, Nefeli Papadimouli’s Dream Coat III catches my eye. She calls them “costume-paintings.” Six stitched fabric works track the movement of the sun across the sky. Later, I learn they’ll be activated by performers in the courtyard. I love that; objects that wait for their moment to come alive.

There are sculptural interventions by Theodoulos Polyviou, Ileana Arnaoutou & Ismene King, and Polina Miliou engaging with ruin, memory, and speculative architecture. These works speak to a collective fragility, a tension between holding on and letting go.

But two pieces that open up space for technology and digital experimentation hold me longer: Theo Triantafyllis’ Drift Lattice is a live simulation of a marine ecosystem, reacting to real-time data from global climate-monitoring networks. It’s equal parts poetic and terrifying. Near the end of the exhibition, Byron Kalomamas adjusts his own sculpture — part machine, part infrastructure. His work, If you want to know about Change, first look at rivers, features pistons and valves pumping water through vessels. It’s complex but clear: how do we relate to our environments — and to each other?

As the museum fills up, I slip away with friends and head toward Metaxourgeio. Day one ends with dinner at Seychelles, one of the best bistronomy spots in Athens. Greek soul food, served simply. The sautéed liver is excellent. Cold beers keep coming, and more artists join in. What follows is one of those blurry, memorable table talks about utopias, funding, and how to escape the art world without ever really leaving it.

Sunday morning. I take the train to the port of Piraeus, scrolling through Instagram stories from the private gathering at Dakis Joannou’s house. It’s happening right now; a sort of art brunch before everyone heads to Hydra. Every year, he opens his home to friends to view highlights from his iconic collection. This time, it’s all about Jeff Koons. I spot a metallic wall display. It gleams; sleek, alien, strangely warm. I’m hooked.

The port is chaotic. Tourists, families, suitcases. On the ferry to Hydra, the air-con blasts until the crowd balances it out. I end up sitting next to Victoria Fassianou, daughter of the late painter Alekos Fassianos (1935-2022), with her young son Nikos. She tells me about an upcoming banquet in Kea, where her father’s atelier and residence remain untouched, filled with handmade toys, ceramics, and his clothes. She mentions past guests like Louis Aragon and Niki de Saint Phalle. I promise to visit soon. Onboard, the monitor plays Fashion TV: Dior Kids, then a safety video about life jackets. The trip is short; just over an hour.

Arrival. Hydra is perfect. Picturesque and cosmopolitan. Donkeys carry Rimowa suitcases. On the port, workers are setting up for tonight’s opening party. Right across is Dakis’ yacht Guilty, a floating masterpiece by Koons inspired by WWI camouflage. Bold geometric shapes in electric colors. A total razzle-dazzle.

After a quick swim and siesta at Hydronetta, a dreamy beach bar tucked into the rocks, it’s time to head to the Slaughterhouse. Since 2009, this former abattoir has served as DESTE’s Project Space. Each summer, a new artist takes over the raw stone structure perched above the sea. This year it’s Andra Ursuţa, with Apocalypse Now and Then.

A handwritten sign points the way. Spinning on the terrace of the old slaughterhouse, a nine-metre reflective sculpture by Jeff Koons — Apollo Wind Spinner — catches the breeze. It’s like a mythological disco ball. Everyone’s taking selfies.

There’s a long queue, not quite open yet. I sneak in ten minutes early, pretending to be helpful. I forgot to say: I’m using a disposable camera this weekend. I have no idea what I’m shooting but it feels right.

Inside, the show is eerie and electric. Ursuţa reimagines the space as a ruin from the future. A faux-archaeological museum of civilization gone wrong. Bronze sculptures inspired by domestic objects mutate into monstrous hybrids. One work features a platter of snakes emerging from a bicycle helmet. Another, a chair resembling an orthopedic throne or the hug of an iron maiden. In the main chamber, two lead-crystal Half-Drunk Mummy figures stand guard, surrounded by nine hanging jugs shaped like organs. The show isn’t about collapse. It’s about the fantasy of it. The seductive allure of endings.

Back outside, the queue now stretches down the cliff. People say hi, hug, and exchange updates. Old friends, new faces. Everyone is slightly sun-kissed, slightly sweaty, and a little tipsy already.

The party kicks off at the port. Loud music, endless food, ouzo, and gossip. A spontaneous panigiri — a village-style feast for the global art crowd. Hospitality as form. Dakis as host, collector, connector. Over at the buffet, Maurizio Cattelan pokes at a pita stuffed with skewer. “Is there onion inside?” he asks. We laugh. He means it. This is the vibe.

Later we drift to The Pirate Bar, Hydra’s after-hours spot. The dock is full of familiar energy, linen collars undone, conversations looping between languages, laughter. That glowing mood that only comes with sea air and the right people. Someone puts on Bronski Beat and suddenly the dance floor is alive. Someone else leans in for a midnight secret. The smell of jasmine drifts down from somewhere uphill.

I want to stay here forever. But I can’t. See you next year.