Danae Stratou, wife of Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, is visiting Portugal this week as her husband faces yet another crunch-moment in their country’s history.
But Stratou’s arrival has nothing to do with politics.
The 50-year-old installation artist is here to attend an international conference in Vila Nova de Cerveira on the rarefied subject of “Production and musealization of art works in digital format”.
Expresso reports that “by her side will be art critic Fátima Lambert and Portuguese artist Margarida Leão”.
The paper adds it “does not know” if Stratou’s famous husband will be with her “as he is still busy trying to find a solution to the Greek crisis”.
For those unaware of the meaning of “musealization” it has to do with “presenting virtual objects in digital supports”.
Stratou has won international acclaim in her field since graduating from St Martin’s art college in London and is believed to have been the inspiration behind the song “Common People” by British rock group Pulp.
Far from being ‘common’ however, she is the daughter of Greek millionaire industrialist Phaedon Catsambas and sculptress Eleni Potaga-Stratou – considered a “living legend in contemporary Greek art”, according to the Athens Voice.
Shedding light on an aspect EU lenders may well appreciate, Stratou describes her approach to her art as imagining “two parallel realities”.
“There is the world inside and the world outside of us”, she writes on her website.
