A Collection as a Library of the Human Condition
The debut exhibition quite literally invites visitors to peek into the repository—as if it had been symbolically opened—illuminating just a few pages of the collection while offering a glimpse of the library’s broader scale. At once a workspace, gallery, archive, library, repository, and site of preservation, the space encourages reflection, engagement, and discovery—intellectual, visual, and emotional.
The scenography of the space also reflects the identity of the collection itself, which originally began with artists’ books. ‘For me, a book is multidimensional. I’ve always been fascinated by books as an art form,’ Irene told me in an interview a little over a year ago. ‘Each page of an artist’s book reveals something new, making it a continuous work of art. There is a sense of motion and kinetic quality in a book that I find captivating.’
‘Art reminds us of our relationships, our identity, who we are, what we represent, and where we want to be. It highlights our connections and serves as a tool for communication. We need art because it reminds us of beauty and helps us see things more clearly. I believe that art is like a voice. And as a voice, it is often more powerful than words. It can also tell us who we are. It underscores that we are human above all,’ says Irene.
The show Fernweh, or Nostalgia for Unknown Lands, unfolds like a knot within a net of ideas, historical periods, and sociopolitical events, aspiring to illuminate some of the core themes of the Irene Panagopoulos Collection. At the same time, the exhibition offers a deeply personal interpretation of how we perceive the world and reality at a specific moment in time. It frames this perception as a continuous process of self- and world-discovery—one closely tied to the tools and knowledge available to us at any given moment. In this light, reality becomes an ever-evolving process of redefining and expanding the boundaries of what is known. It is no coincidence that the exhibition’s curator, Katerina Hadji, chose the German word Fernweh [fern (“far”) + Weh (“pain”), meaning “longing for distant places” or, loosely, “nostalgia for unknown lands”] to capture this deep and persistent yearning for exploration.
As Walter Benjamin writes in his essay “Unpacking my library”: “Property and possession belong to the tactical sphere. Collectors are people with tactical instinct; their experience teaches them that when they capture a strange city, the smallest antique shop can be a fortress, the most remote stationery store a key position. How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in pursuit in books!”
Irene Panagopoulos’ collection space is accessible by appointment only and through guided tours. In many ways, it resembles reading a book that invites endless interpretation—an individual journey where dominant historical narratives intertwine with personal stories. It also represents a thoughtful, elegant, and sustainable approach to presenting a collection. In a world saturated with glamorous private museums, sometimes all it takes to make a powerful and meaningful statement is to simply open a repository – a library of human condition.
