Literature:
Kathimerini daily, 27/28.9.1981.
Gynaika magazine, 2.12.1981.
Arti magazine, no.4 (Alexis Akrithakis), March-April 1991, p. 86 (referred), pp. 88-89 (illustrated).
Metamorhoses of the Modern, 'The Greek Experience', exhibition catalogue, National Gallery - A. Soutzos Museum, Athens 1992, p. 422 (referred).
Akrithakis, retrospective exhibition catalogue, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Thessaloniki - Athens, 1997, p. 296 (discussed).
A. Adamopoulou, Greek Postwar Art Installations, University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 2000, p. 91 (discussed).
A. Koroxenidis, 'Alexis Akrithakis, a Little Prince' in Alexis Akrithakis, Portalakis Collection, Athens 2004, p. 23 (discussed).
D. Zacharopoulos, Alexis Akrithakis, K. Adam publ., Athens 2005, pp. 146-148 (discussed), p. 130 (illustrated).
B. Papadopoulou, 'The Years of Defiance, The Art of the '70s in Greece', exhibition catalogue, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens 2005, p. 297 (discussed).
The Pioneers, Art in Greece in the Second Half of the 20th Century - Beltsios Collection, Futura publ., p. 462 (referred).
Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, The Permanent Collection, vol. 1, Thessaloniki 1999, p. 40 (discussed).
G. Karouzakis, "Of Fairytale and Reality", Eleftherotypia newspaper, 18.5.2004 (discussed).
The Pioneers, Art in Greece in the Second Half of the 20th Century - Beltsios Collection, Futura Publ., p. 462 (referred).

"The top work from this time
is undoubtedly the famous Bar."
M. Kotzamani

"In the 1980s Akrithakis explores the expressive potential of his materials with an increasingly intense fervour. His assemblages and wooden constructions, painted over with free, gestural brushstrokes, convey the intense atmosphere of a folk fest (multi-coloured light bulbs, plastic flowers, broken mirror shards, etc.). However, the top work from this time is undoubtedly the famous Bar. A life-size bar/artwork whose experienced reality instantly brings to mind the philosophy of Beuys and the Fluxus, the actual room presented by Lucas Samaras in Kassel or the 'little shop' that Ben transferred intact from Nice to the Beaubourg. All these are essentially acts of extreme consistency and sensitivity which abolish the boundaries between 'seeming' and 'being' and turn the idea of Art into experienced truth and energy."1

"Bar, this exceptional installation set up at the Bernier gallery in 1981, is an all-encompassing work, where space and art merge into one experience, in a personal and original conclusion of the conceptual approach the artist adopted throughout his entire oeuvre."2 "Akrithakis' constructions culminate into an entire space in Bar, in essence a bar/artwork. Bar may well be the most tangible expression of the fusion between art and life that Akrithakis so vividly experienced. Since most of his works are records of moments and emotions in his life, it is likely that the bar reflected his own experiences. Significantly, it was such a bar, or rather restaurant which his wife had opened in Berlin, that Akrithakis frequented along with friends and patrons, including Rauschenberg, Hockney, Beuys, Kounellis, Warhol and Maurice Bejart."3

One of the most charismatic postwar Greek artists, Alexis Akrithakis explored an eccentric and witty collision of expressionism and pop art, conveying an insistent search for joy and revealing the inventive mind of a restless child building his own toys.

1. M. Kotzamani, 'Bio-graphy' [in Greek] in Akrithakis, exhibition catalogue Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Thessaloniki - Athens, 1997, p. 296.
2. D. Zacharopoulos, Alexis Akrithakis, K. Adam publ., Athens 2005, pp. 146-147.
3. A. Koroxenidis, Alexis Akrithakis, a Little Prince, in Alexis Akrithakis, Portalakis Collection, Athens 2004, p. 23.