It was founded by Jean Bernier in 1977 (as Bernier gallery) and was originally housed at a space in Athens (Kolonaki), provided by Alexander Iolas. Soon, Marina Eliades joined the gallery’s stuff and substantially contributed to its development and further action. From its early years, the gallery presented to the Greek public artworks of significant Greek artists who lived and worked abroad (Antonakos , Kounellis , Samaras , Stamos, et al.), as well as the work of established and new European and American artists, focusing on the conceptual movements of international contemporary art, and introduced to the Greek art world innovative movements, such as, arte povera, minimalism, land art, et al .
In 1980 the gallery established ‘Technochoros’, a building of 1,000 sq.m. in Athens (Patissia), which could, if properly supported, function as a future museum of contemporary art; an ambitious project that proved unrealistic. It opened with a major exhibition of Vlassis Caniaris, but did not continue to operate for long.
One of the key characteristics of the gallery’s activity is networking with art organizations internationally, a lasting presence in foires and the constant communication with institutional bodies of contemporary art worldwide. In the light of this concept about international collaborations, the gallery has organized non-commercial major museum exhibitions, such as the retrospective of Gilbert & George (Athens School of Fine Arts, 2001), the exhibition of artworks by Van Abbe Museum, Netherlands (Athens School of Fine Arts, 2002), and also the retrospective of Stella and Takis Kavallieratos (Benaki Museum, 2007).
To date, the gallery has represented a large number of foreign artists, i.e. Haluk Akakçe, Giovanni Anselmo, John Baldessari, Christian Boltanski, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Tony Cragg, Lionel Estève, Gilbert & George, Donald Judd, Harald Klingelhöller, Justin Lieberman, Richard Long, Mario and Marisa Merz, Anette Messager, Juan Muñoz, Tony Oursler, Ed Ruscha, Thomas Schütte, Jim Shaw, Keith Sonnier, Jeffrey Vallance, Monique Van Genderen, Boyd Webb, Marnie Weber, Liang Wei, Franz Wes, as well as many Greek artists, including Alexis Akrithakis, George Hadjimichalis, George Lappas, Nikos Navridis, Christiana Soulou, Katerina Zacharopoulou, George Zongolopoulos et al.
In 1999 the gallery moved to a neoclassical building in Thissio, Athens. So far, two anniversary catalogues on the gallery activity have been published by Agra publications (1998 and 2010).