Fall into Ruin

The film details American artist William E. Jones’s visit to the villa of Alexander Iolas, a gay Greek merchant and collector, in Athens. The house is shown in its current state of total abandonment, and during its early-80s glory, when it was beautifully furnished with works of contemporary art and antiquity. The director’s voice-over recalls a youthful encounter with his late friend, who lived between Greece and the United States. An original character around whom an internationally cultured and refined milieu met, Iolas showed great generosity to artists in trouble. Iolas organized Andy Warhol’s first show when the Pop Art genius was unknown. He supported Max Ernst when the master of Surrealism couldn’t sell his work. The visual narrative is constructed of fixed images, shots of present-day Athens covered with graffiti, works in the National Archaeological Museum, and the splendor of Iolas’s home. Memory and oblivion of a time that was, and of an influential art world figure now forgotten.