Greek dancers perform in front of a recreation of artist Rip Kastaris’ mural “KYKLOS – Circle of Glory” during a celebration to commemorate the work’s creation more than 20 years ago. The mural now hangs in Spiros Olympic Stadium in Athens. (Photos by Lisa Danko)
The University of Missouri–St. Louis welcomed members of the St. Louis region’s thriving Greek community to campus last weekend for a celebration commemorating the anniversary of local artist Rip Kastaris’ mural “KYKLOS – Circle of Glory,” which was created to mark the 2004 return of the Olympic Games to its ancestral home.
More than 20 years after its completion, it remains the only American-created work permanently installed at Spiros Louis Olympic Stadium in Athens.
Michael Cosmopoulos, the Hellenic Government-Karakas Family Foundation Professor in Greek Studies and a professor of archaeology at UMSL, welcomes visitors from the St. Louis Greek community to UMSL for the celebration.
It was an achievement not only for Kastaris but also for the Hellenic Spirit Foundation, headquartered in St. Louis, which initiated and supported the mural’s creation, making it a national project backed by numerous national Greek-American organizations. The Hellenic Spirit Foundation presented last weekend’s celebration jointly with Michael Cosmopoulos, UMSL’s Hellenic Government–Karakas Family Foundation Professor in Greek Studies.
“The importance of the event was not just to remind people of that project but to remind people of this deeper connection between Greece and St. Louis,” Cosmopoulos said. “Democracy, equality, trying to work out differences in a peaceful and diplomatic manner rather than through violence and conflict – these are just some of the threads that connect Greece to the United States in the 21st century. This event and this project really symbolize those things. It’s much more than just a mural hanging on the wall in Athens.”
About 300 people attended the event, held Saturday afternoon in the Century Rooms of the Millennium Student Center. Among the distinguished guests were Emmanuel Koubarakis, the Consul General of Greece in Chicago; the president and board of the Hellenic Spirit Foundation; leaders of local Greek organizations; and members of the board of the Greek professorship.
Bess Fitzmaurice receives flowers from the Hellenic Spirit Foundation as artist Rip Kastaris looks on from behind the lectern. Fitzmaurice was instrumental in organizing Saturday’s celebration.
The afternoon included a screening of a film, created by Kastaris, about the making of the mural.
“The name of the project, KYKLOS, is the Greek word for circle, and the idea was that we were coming full circle in that the Olympic Games were returning to their birthplace,” Cosmopoulos said. “The Olympic Games in ancient Greece came to symbolize brotherhood among people and peace, so the mural is charged with all these ideas. It’s not just a piece of art, but it captures and encapsulates what Greece was about.”
Attendees were treated to performances by dance groups from both St. Nicholas Orthodox Christian Church in the Central West End and Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in Des Peres, Missouri, and they dined on Greek food.
The afternoon also saw the unveiling of a portrait of the late Nicholas Karakas, whose donation through the Karakas Family Foundation partially endowed the professorship in Greek Studies at UMSL. He passed away in 2021.
About 300 people attended the celebration on Saturday afternoon in the Century Rooms of the Millennium Student Center.
The portrait will hang in The Nicholas and Theodora Matsakis Greek Culture Center in Lucas Hall.
Cosmopoulos was grateful for the opportunity Saturday’s event provided to bring people to the UMSL campus.
“The wider issue here is the role of universities as nodes for community engagement,” he said. “Our job and our mission as professors and as academics is not to serve academia, but to serve the wider community. Our university has been really a pioneer in reaching out to the community, bringing the community into the university and the university going out to the community, so that we have this close interaction between academics and the public.”
