How does a work of art ultimately find a permanent place in public space? Drawing on material gathered through her research, Maria Papanikolaou’s solo exhibition brings to light overlooked aspects of public art. She focuses on stories through which little-known works are brought back into view: sculptures caught up in bureaucratic entanglements, proposals that came ‘second’ in public competitions and were never realised, meticulously developed projects that remained as models and maquettes, and even sculptures that were destroyed and reduced to scrap through obscure administrative protocols.

As these stories unfold, images emerge of what familiar squares, pedestrian areas and parks across Athens might have looked like had things taken a different course. Given the close relationship between sculpture in Greece and public art, monuments and artistic competitions, the research also brings to the fore the challenges of the field in which Papanikolaou herself works. How have these challenges affected women sculptors in Greece over previous decades, and what has their presence been within the demanding, time-consuming and costly bureaucratic processes involved in commissioning public sculpture? How do particular historical and political circumstances determine which proposal comes ‘first’, and what might Athens look like today had the sculptures that came ‘second’ actually been erected?

For Papanikolaou, the term ‘second’ extends beyond the position of the runner-up. It encompasses the unrealised versions of the public art that surrounds us, as well as that which is overlooked as secondary and remains outside the dominant narrative.

Image in reference, Second, Maria Papanikolaou, 2026