TAF: the home of art and great drinks. We like.

There is little else as annoying as what I like to call ‘alternative sheep’- the people who are so eager to avoid blending in that they end up becoming their own stereotype. The Athenian equivalent of Brick Lane is overflowing with edgy bars that are all different in the same way: mismatching furniture, retro posters, dim lighting and expensive drinks. The vibe is overwrought with pretention but search and ye shall find a bar that is unique without the flock of posers or down-market drinks with the up-market price tags.

Welcome to The Art Foundation, better known as TAF, a gem of a bar wedged down some alleyway in Psirri, invisible to the naked eye of passers by if it weren’t for one thing… it is always jam-packed.

We stepped into the entrance gingerly. Was this really the right place? Despite the name glaring at me in neon letters, I had my reservations, but the din of general merriment that beckoned from around the corner placated any doubts. A few steps in we turned right and into a mirage in the dirty desert that is Athens. An open court yard was littered with tables which were, in turn, stock-piled with cocktails and laughter. The trees were singing with flashing fairy lights. Then, the piece de resistance- I noticed that the courtyard was flanked on all sides by little rooms which were, for the most part, dimly lit. We ventured further in, silly smiles slapped across our faces, to find that each room was a mini art exhibition. Modern art, cool art, not the kind where someone paints some boxes white and gives it a title like ‘Artist’s Interpretation of the Bible’, but the kind of art that makes you think. One room was devoted entirely to the stray dogs of Athens complete with photos, figurines and a video of the singing dog.

The day I discovered TAF it was a Tuesday. Still, we could barely move for all the people. I thought, this bar should respect itself for being so damn cool.

Despite the hordes of people, we didn’t feel like cattle. The atmosphere at TAF is so relaxed and unpretentious that even if we hadn’t found a table (thanks to an innate gift of mine), we would have been perfectly happy to mingle and browse. It was great to go somewhere different for a change but at the same time, TAF also has the potential to be one’s local.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get better, we got change back from our twenty for two cocktails. The economic crisis has not slowed us Athenians down one bit. It’s sad to realise that we think €8 is a decent price for a cocktail but we’ll take what we can get. To add the mint-leaf on top, the mojitos we ordered were fabulous… and I don’t even like mojitos! However, the bartender, a courteous young man who answered to the name of Christo, insisted that these were the best mojitos in town. He was right.

The perfect drink to accompany art in Athens

My next visit saw me marching in super early, mission in mind. I grinned at Christo, demanded a mojito (though I did say please) and asked him a few tentative questions concerning the history of the bar. He gave me directions to ask someone else. That someone else turned out to be… well, I wouldn’t quite call him a character… he was more like a character-wannabe. When I told him I was interested in reviewing TAF he looked through his thick black spectacles, past his swollen plaid bow-tie (yes, really), down onto me and said, ‘Which magazine are you from?’

Funnily enough, this middle-aged curator (self-proclaimed) did not recognize the fresh, female-driven delight that is our Running In Heels. All at once his expression glazed over. I smiled my most charming smile. Unfortunately, this didsn’t seem to have much of an effect; it rarely works on gay guys. Then again, perhaps he wasn’t gay. It’s hard to tell sometimes with these arty types.

My gentle probing did not warrant particularly fruitful responses; they were not as enlightening as one could have hoped. I learnt that:

• TAF opened in May this year.
• It is linked to some movement from the sixties called Kunst de something. He spelt the first word kindly and then promptly left me to my own devices. I thought it would be rude to ask him to repeat it a third time. What is the appropriate number of times one can ask someone to repeat something?
• It is a ‘curator’s exhibition’ that works with about 300 artists.
• They do not have a message: ‘Art is normal for us. A bar is normal for us. So the combination makes just as much sense.’ What a brilliant lack of pretention, thought I.
  

  Inside TAF

I’m sure that Mr. Bow-tie was more insightful than that but it was difficult to pay attention to him when his eyes kept sliding around the room like pucks in a pinball machine. Suddenly I realized that I’d been harbouring a tiny seed of hope that one of these super important arty people would recognise genius in me and lay claims on me as their protégée. Needless to say, my dreams of bonding with this particular underground art hero were crushed almost instantly. Oh well, I thought, there’s always my mojito and some art.

Wandering around the rooms with their oh so cool exposed stone walls, I oohed and aahed appropriately at the newest exhibitions. Not bad, I thought, not bad at all. A room or two later I became a little disillusioned. Sure, some of them were interesting at first, but a zillion pictures of one’s childhood with cryptic sentences like, ‘She always wondered’ does not a good impression make. Scoffing our way out of this particular room, we paused to read the information on the digital screen- maybe it could be salvaged after all. What did the screen say? Beats me. It was a bunch of arty mumbo jumbo. Something about lost innocence and wondering, ‘what the hell went wrong?’ I turned to my friend and snickered, ‘I’ll tell you what went wrong. She decided to become a goddamn artist.’

Wandering into the next room, I realized that the artists were stood outside their respective galleries deciphering their work for anyone who cared to ask. I pointed this out to my friend who burst out with, ‘I knew that girl was giving you a dirty look!’ Oops.

Dogs are the new muses it would seem...

Then something dawned on me. I had happened to drift in on the opening night; the night that would mean TAF would be swarming with the pretentious types that are usually absent.

In another part of building (which had very charming white washed wooden floors, I might add), attractive pictures of nature hung, huge and simple and sad. They were nice. The room was nice. The people seemed nice. However the highlight was the stray dog that was milling around smiling at the crowds.

Although my initial crush on TAF has waned considerably, it is still a place that I would recommend in a heartbeat, if not for its unique concept, then at least for its adorable little fairy-lighted courtyard. At the end of the evening, we came away a few fantastic mojitos in our bellies, a bit of culture and a cute guy’s phone number. What more could a girl ask for?

www.theartfoundation.gr