The marble workers laboring on the decades‐long restoration of the Acropolis are the invisible force rebuilding one of the world's most storied monuments. Inheritors of millennia-old tradition, few carvers exist today; fewer pass the Acropolis entrance exams. Their work is a highly technical amalgam of past and present, yet what these master marble carvers do and how they do it it has been undocumented until now. As the restoration enters its final phases, this book of interviews explores the workers' craft, techniques, training, and specific roles within the restoration in their unique and deeply personal voices.
On the Rock: The Acropolis Interviews brings together ancient building practices, the teaching of traditional craft, changes in the practice of architectural restoration, and the social and class dynamics within the restoration site. Concurrently, the book considers Greece's political and economic crisis from the workers' position. Amidst crippling unemployment, work on the Rock continues, despite radical cuts. How has the Greek crisis affected the technicians' thoughts about their craft, jobs, and citizenship? On the Rock explores the intersection of these issues.
Artist ALLYSON VIEIRA lives and works in New York. She is currently Assistant Professor of Foundations at the Corcoran School of Art at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. She has exhibited extensively both internationally and in the U.S., including institutional projects at Kunsthalle Basel (Basel, CH), Swiss Institute (NY), Storm King Art Center (NY), PinchukArtCentre (Kiev, UA), Non-Objectif Sud (Tulette, FR), Frieze Projects (NY), The Public Art Fund (NY), The Highline (NY), and SculptureCenter (NY), and recent solo gallery exhibitions at Daniel Faria (Toronto, CA), Company (NY), Klaus von Nichtssagend (NY), Mendes Wood DM (Sao Paulo, BR), The Breeder (Athens, GR), and Laurel Gitlen (NY). Her first major catalog, Allyson Vieira: The Plural Present, was published by Karma Books in 2016.