On a rocky outcrop on the small Greek island of Antiparos, a waist-high bronze statue of a rabbit sits on the edge of a turquoise infinity pool. Wearing a large, tented skirt, it faces the windswept Aegean Sea from the terrace of a private home. The scene could be from a Greek dream right out of the Odyssey; except the artwork, inspired by Japanese animism, is by renowned artist Leiko Ikemura.
Good Rabbit (2018–24) is one of several works by major international artists gathered in this remote Cycladic setting for “Melting Beauty,” a summer exhibition organized by Thea Montauti d’Harcourt Lyginos, founder of Geneva gallery L’Appartement. The surprisingly remote location of Antiparos, Greece, is a nod to her Greek husband and years of family summers on the island. Like her gallery in Geneva, the choice of location doubles down on Montauti d’Harcourt Lyginos’s philosophy of using residential spaces for art exhibitions.
Placing art in a domestic setting
Inside the house, a patchwork seascape by Sean Scully hangs opposite a 5-meter-long mural by Amy Sillman. A gigantic raw-canvas triptych by Martha Jungwirth occupies the living room; paintings by younger artists appear in the kitchen and bedrooms. Right next to the archaeological site of Despotiko, the house is in an out-of-the-way spot for a show of such high-profile names; others include Yinka Shonibare, Joan Snyder, Kennedy Yanko, and Liliane Tomasko under the fluid theme dreamed up by curator Craig Burnett.
Destination art shows are hardly new in the art world. Mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth has a permanent space in Menorca, Spain, for instance, while DESTE Foundation, an art organization run by Greek collector Dakis Joannou, has staged projects on nearby Hydra for well over a decade. More recently, galleries have become increasingly interested in meeting collectors where they are vacationing, whether at new art fairs in Ibiza and Saint-Tropez, or through pop-ups like this one, which runs through August 31st. During the exhibition’s opening days, the gallery directors, artists, and collectors dropping in suggested that its approach was working.
Everyone, it seems, wants to be part of the dreamy Greek island lifestyle, including artists. Snyder, the acclaimed American painter, for instance, created one of her “Pond” works specifically for the show, drawn in by Burnett, with whom she’s worked for years.
“It sounded intriguing to be in a show in Greece that [Burnett] was curating,” she said. “Of course I said yes.”
Artworks on the theme of “Melting Beauty”
Deep Pond, 2026
Joan Snyder
L'Appartement
Deep Pond (2026) is a muddy taupe square with a sticky acrylic void at its center. It’s dotted with tiny collaged green and pink blobs. For curator Burnett, it encapsulates the concept of “Melting Beauty.” Throughout the show, he explained, he chose works that seem in the middle of disintegration to evoke the sensual qualities that are so present in the Greek landscape beyond the residence’s borders. “It really suits the setting in terms of the title of the show—in terms of melting, the sense of liquefaction, but also the sense of the sensuality of emotion,” he said.
Alongside the renowned names are several rising artists. A painting of flowy female figures byKonstantina Krikzoni fills the kitchen while Amorelle Jacox’s gauzy symbolist canvases hang in the master bedroom.
“The show is invested with this kind of feeling of eros,” Burnett said, pointing to a copy of Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man. In the book, Schiller contrasts “melting” beauty, which relaxes our minds, with the taut, rigid kind, which energizes us. A small, tabletop sculpture by Kennedy Yanko, made using her signature paint-skin and metal technique, offers a case in point. Its pink, folded form slumps sensually on its plinth, unexpectedly elegant.
L’Appartement’s first off-site
The island project makes more sense in light of Montauti d’Harcourt Lyginos’s career. She began at Sotheby’s in London, before moving to Geneva to work for Gagosian. When she established her own gallery in the Swiss lakeside city in 2024, she set out to create the kind of space she'd always wanted to visit: somewhere welcoming, with the feel of an apartment.
“I never envisioned this sort of multinational white cube, with many spaces around the world,” she said. “That was never the ambition.” Instead, she wanted a place where visitors could sit down and talk—something she felt Geneva lacked. On Antiparos, she’s translated that vision into a real home.
But why this specific island home? For Montauti d’Harcourt Lyginos, that connection starts with her name. “Thea” means goddess in Greek—a name her mother gave her, inspired by her love of ancient Greece. Then she married a Greek man, and the tie deepened. For the past decade, the family has spent its summers around the Aegean: Antiparos and nearby Paros as well as Schinoussa. “It’s really my second home,” she said.
When the opportunity arose to stage an exhibition in a newly built private residence on Antiparos, she didn’t hesitate. The island, she noted, already had the right audience.
“Historically, Antiparos always brought a very artsy crowd,” she said, adding that major gallerists Eva Presenhuber and Dominique Lévy both have connections to the island. It’s a haunt for Hollywood names, too: Tom Hanks and Sofia Coppola both vacation there.
But the gallerist isn’t sticking around beyond summer. Montauti d’Harcourt Lyginos is already considering another off-site project, this time in Turin, Italy. “I’m 100 percent Italian,” she said with a grin. But that will be at least two years before that happens.
Wall Sky Blue Grey, 2026
Sean Scully
L'Appartement
Flirt, 2024
Arlene Shechet
L'Appartement
Her first off-site exhibition taught her that such projects require more time than expected—most importantly to allow artists to create new commissions. The gallery may have escaped the white cube, but it has not escaped the logistical challenges of mounting an international exhibition.
After all, “Beautiful things are difficult, right?” she said, smiling.
