In an official statement, the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST) bid farewell to Anna Kafetsi, art historian and curator, who served as the museum’s founding and first director.

“Anna Kafetsi was the defining figure behind the creation of the National Museum of Contemporary Art. She led the museum from 2000 to 2014 and built it from the ground up, shaping step by step its collection, identity, and institutional character with seriousness and consistency. At a time when Greece still lacked a national institution dedicated to contemporary art, she devoted herself entirely to establishing one, driven by an unwavering belief in the necessity of such a museum.

“Through her work and perseverance, she laid the foundations for an institution that transformed the landscape of contemporary art in Greece. She supported artists, highlighted new directions, and fostered a space open to experimentation and international exchange.

“Her contribution to contemporary Greek art, curatorial practice, and the development of contemporary art institutions in Greece remains a fundamental and lasting point of reference. EMST extends its sincere condolences to her family and to all those who collaborated with her. She leaves behind a great legacy and a great void,” the museum’s statement reads.

Born in 1954, Anna Kafetsi studied art history in France and continued with postgraduate studies supported by an Alexander S. Onassis Foundation scholarship between 1979 and 1982.

Before taking over EMST, she worked as curator of the 20th-century collections at the National Gallery–Alexandros Soutsos Museum in Athens. During this time, Anna Kafetsi curated a number of landmark exhibitions that introduced international modern and avant-garde movements to Greek audiences. Among the most important was the major exhibition Russian Avant-Garde 1910–1930: The G. Costakis Collection (1995–1996), presented at the National Gallery in Athens. Curated by Anna Kafetsi, the exhibition featured hundreds of works by leading avant-garde artists including Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Rodchenko, Lyubov Popova, El Lissitzky, and Vladimir Tatlin. The exhibition is widely regarded as a milestone in the presentation of Russian avant-garde art in Greece. She also organized important retrospectives and thematic exhibitions devoted to modern and contemporary Greek art, including exhibitions on Vlassis Caniaris and artists of the Greek postwar avant-garde, contributing decisively to the reinterpretation of modern Greek artistic production within an international context.

In 2000, she became the founding director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, a position she held until 2014, playing a decisive role in shaping the museum’s collections, curatorial vision, and international orientation.

Widely regarded as one of the key figures in the institutional establishment of contemporary art in Greece, Kafetsi curated numerous major exhibitions in Greece and abroad and later continued her work as director of the annexM Contemporary Art Center at the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron). “Her relationship with the Athens Concert Hall was both close and longstanding. Through annexM, the pioneering contemporary art program she introduced to the Hall, she played a decisive role in shaping a new meeting ground between the visual arts and the wider public. Over the ten years of annexM’s activity, daring and poetic exhibitions with substantial theoretical depth were presented. Under her artistic vision, the spaces of the Athens Concert Hall hosted, among others, significant visual art productions such as The Garden Sees, The Last Reader, After Babel, Marginalia, Places of Reflection by Giorgos Xenos, Free from What by Maria Papanikolaou, Songlines by Katerina Katsifaraki, Particle Garden by Nikos Papadopoulos, and Symphony 37 by Giorgos Drivas,” reads the statement issued by the Athens Concert Hall.

Kafetsi also made a major contribution to art historical scholarship and exhibition publishing in Greece. Throughout her career, she edited and authored numerous exhibition catalogues, essays, and critical texts focusing on modernism, the historical avant-garde, and contemporary art.