Kantharos Gatherings is an original series of wine tasting events designed by emerging visual artists, powered by Dexamenes Seaside Hotel. Curated by Eleni Tranouli, Kantharos Gatherings bridges hospitality with contemporary art and intertwines with the hotel’s story as a postwar winery turned into a barefoot luxury resort.

It all began when visionary hotelier Nikos Karaflos approached Eleni Tranouli to imagine a bespoke art concept for his award-winning Dexamenes Seaside Hotel, opening this season at Kourouta Beach. Captivated by K-studio’s monastic design of the hotel, the curator immediately started digging into the site’s industrial past rooted in wine production and trade, to devise Kantharos Gatherings, a series of multi-sensory wine tasting events staged by emerging contemporary artists, with offerings sourced from exciting local wineries.

The name for the events derives from the ancient Greek cup kantharos, a typical vase used for drinking wine, and an attribute to the god Dionysus. During summer, handpicked creatives are invited to explore Dexamenes as residents and stage multi-sensory, site-conscious wine tastings using performance art, installation, sound, and media, affording guests a transformative journey through sound, visual narratives, performative objects, costumes, and flavors. Guests will get to taste wines that have been carefully selected by expert sommelier Chryssa Giatra Batzi from the distinguished Mercouri, Brintzikis, Markogianni, and Stavropoulos wine estates in Ilia, each of whom carries its own special tradition in winemaking.

The artists headlining at Dexamenes this season are Panos Profitis, Despina Charitonidi, and Paky Vlassopoulou. On June 29 and July 13, Profitis and Charitonidi are joining forces for a moving, participatory experience engaging with performance, site-based sculpture, sound, and organic-industrial scenography. On August 17 and August 24, Vlassopoulou will be staging a nomadic journey inside the hotel, tackling questions of cleanness, proper etiquette, and good manners, in a wine tasting turned into a katharsis ritual of body and mind.

A wine tasting by artists Panos Profitis and Despina Charitonidi
Saturday, June 29 & Saturday, July 13

A wine tasting by artist Paky Vlassopoulou
Saturday, August 17 & Saturday, August 24

Tickets: General: 25€, Combo for 2 persons: 40€. Doors open at 20:30.

Dexamenes Seaside Hotel: Kourouta Beach | Beach Front, Amaliada 272 00, Greece For reservations, please contact culture@dexamenes.com or call at +30 2622 025999

Eleni Tranouli offers research-based curatorial and advisory services driven by art as experience. She believes that art can elevate the every day, challenge perception and help access a refined way of living. With a focus on hospitality and a flair for affecting design, she develops bespoke art concepts that give form to people’s ideas and fantasies about the places they inhabit and traverse. https://elenitranouli.com/

Panos Profitis’ practice is rooted in movement, rituals, body gestures and characters. He often works with industrial materials and fabricates unusual objects that get activated through performance. His inspiration comes from the systems of objects that surrounds us, food culture, the human condition and strange personalities. He often expresses feelings and situations through the use of masks and contemporary and archaic symbols. http://panosprofitis.tumblr.com/

Despina Charitonidi’s work spans sculpture, site-specific installations and performative art. She is particularly interested in studying the properties of different materials and what they evoke to the viewer. Many of her works introduce notions of weight and balance. Her practice explores issues like the relationship between intimacy and power. In her performances, she treats body as a tool for limited capabilities, uncontrolled fragility and mimic repetition. https://www.despinacharitonidi.com/

Paky Vlassopoulou’s work is informed by the dialectics of traditional sculpture making in relation to spatial issues, objecthood, functionality, and bodily experiences. She is often concerned with thematics that deal with knowledge production, history, ruins and issues with issues revolving around the service providing industries by questioning the role of care and hospitality. https://pakyvlassopoulou.com/