Artists and the University Heritage: The Case of the Athens University History Museum and the Exhibition “Opy Zouni: In First Person”

The university museums protect, conserve and present the cultural heritage related to education. The paper presents the initiative of the Athens University History Museum of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), a university museum that organizes for the first time in a university space a temporary exhibition dedicated to Opy Zouni, a painter with international recognition in the contemporary art of geometric abstraction. The exhibition “Opy Zouni: in first person” presented selected works by Opy Zouni with the main purpose of attributing the artistic dimension of the creator through the interpretation and analysis of her works by herself in the first person. The idea was conceived on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the loss of the internationally renowned painter Opy Zouni with the consent of the family for a cultural event that would give the public a different perspective of her work. The paper presents a good example (useful for art curators and art managers) of a temporary exhibition of a university museum which connecting the contemporary art with the university heritage.