Group show curated by Milovan Farronato
Public Secrets
June 21, 2025–August 30, 2025The Breeder, Athens
The Breeder is pleased to present the group exhibition Public Secrets, featuring works by Eleni Christodoulou, Alexandra Christou, Maria Hassabi, Maria Joannou, Athena Kalogirou, Iva Lulashi, Olma, Paulina Olowska and Georgia Sagri.
Curated by Milovan Farronato, the show explores the fragile thresholds between visibility and concealment, intimacy and exposure. As he explains:
What happens when we overturn our perception or step off the beaten path? To deviate from the expected, to “delirare,” as it were, means to move away from the familiar, from the “lira”—the Latin word for an arable field, a space carefully cultivated and controlled. This exhibition delves into the spaces where convention is upended, where the familiar is disrupted, and where secrets are revealed. What transpires when the private becomes public, when the untold stories emerge from the shadows and step into the light? Perhaps it is the metaphorical elephant entering the room—an unavoidable truth suddenly made visible.
Public Secrets takes its inspiration from this complex interplay of visibility and concealment, of internal and external, of private and public. Through the works of invited artists, the exhibition explores the tension between what is concealed and what is exposed, urging us to confront those things we might prefer to overlook. It seeks to “put the other side of the coin on display,” showing not only what is seen but what is hidden in plain sight.
At the core of this inquiry is a question that resonates across time and space: What does it mean to reveal a secret? How does the dynamic between individuals, groups, and societies shift when a secret becomes public? But perhaps the truth is never whole; perhaps it always presents itself as a half-truth? When we see the revealed part, do we always miss the entirety, or is it precisely in the half that its essence lies? As the show unfolds within the gallery space of The Breeder in Athens, a city at the crossroads of history and contemporary life, the artworks will weave a narrative that invites us to examine the unspoken truths, the things we often choose to ignore, and the boundaries that separate us from what we might otherwise prefer to leave out of sight.
In one sense, Public Secrets asks us to consider those “obvious” truths that are rarely articulated—those uncomfortable realities that are nonetheless always present. In another sense, it pushes us further into the realm of the taboo, the unsaid, the hidden in plain view. How do these layers of meaning shift when the personal becomes a public spectacle? When the hidden is unveiled, how does our relationship with what was once secret change?
Drawing on the metaphor of the “serpent in the bosom”—a notion that has long symbolized both danger and desire—the exhibition challenges us to confront the hidden tensions that shape our lived experiences. From the quiet spaces of private reflection to the charged atmosphere of public discourse, Public Secrets spans the spectrum of human emotion and social interaction, inviting us to question the very boundaries that define our public and private lives.
As the artists take us through their serpentine journeys, weaving through the contradictions of visibility and secrecy, of private anxieties and collective truths, we are left to ponder: What happens when the mask is removed, when the veil is lifted? Can we ever return to a time before the secret was exposed? Or, in seeing the unseen, are we forever changed?
Through Public Secrets, we invite you to explore these questions and more. In the process, you may find that the answers are not as hidden as you once believed.
