The exhibition "In the Name of the Goddess" by Nanni Riccobono, the Italian artist who lives and creates in Kythera, constitutes a visual retrospective into the distant Paleolithic and Neolithic eras. It is a journey into the past of Europe, and beyond, back when, according to a widely held theory, human communities were organized upon peaceful and egalitarian principles, primarily worshipping female deities.
Crete holds a central place in this visual narrative, as it is where this matrilinear social structure seems to have endured longer than in any other region of the Mediterranean.
With the arrival of Indo-European populations, however, this world gradually disappeared. In Greece, a new cosmogony replaced the worship of the Great Mother, relegating the goddesses to the roles of wives and consorts of the dominant gods.
Comprising primarily works in clay, alongside a selection of paintings, the exhibition is a tribute to this lost history.
