National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens

The National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST)

The National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens is the only national Greek institution focusing solely on collecting contemporary Greek and international art. The museum actively collects art to enrich its permanent collection, focusing on works from the latter half of the 20th century and contemporary works.

The Goal

The National Museum has a fast-growing collection, and staff continuously work to write and translate artwork interpretation texts. Staff were looking for a simple process to update information on new collection items for visitors. Working to raise the profile of contemporary Greek artists, the museum was also looking to make its collection more discoverable, shareable, and accessible. They were looking for an avenue to highlight the work of contemporary Greek artists and improve their own data in a flexible way that would grow with their collection.

Smartify’s Solution

Smartify’s dashboard can be used in different ways: some collections want to host a few items as part of a tour and upload works manually, while others want to import their entire collection and work with our data experts to integrate their collection automatically. With the National Museum, we decided to go one step further and worked as consultants to cleanse their data and create an API to easily integrate their database with Smartify.

The Results

The API not only allowed the National Museum to share its collection with Smartify—it also allowed it to share its data with other sources to continue expanding access to its collection. With ongoing database integration, artworks updated in the museum's system are automatically added to the Smartify platform. The guide is kept up to date without manual data entry, ensuring the best possible visitor experience.