![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927a.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a>Dakis Joannou\u2019s yacht Guilty designed by Jeff Koons and Ivana Porfiri, in the port of Hydra, Greece. Photo by Catherine Panchout\/Sygma via Getty Images.<\/p><\/div>\n
The annual show at the Slaughterhouse opens around the time of the summer solstice and draws the global art-world cognoscenti. For many, it is work, but the glam setting of a gorgeous Greek island makes it feel like a vacation. The usual suits and dresses get swapped for beachwear.<\/p>\n
This year was no different. When I arrived at the Deste Slaughterhouse around 9 p.m., the sun still burning orange over the cerulean water, the collector Frank Moore was in a tank top and bathing suit talking to dealer Mike Egan of New York space Ramiken Crucible, while Whitney Museum director Adam Weinberg was in shorts and a T-shirt. At one point, Maurizio Cattelan, in short shorts, grabbed a photographer\u2019s camera and started snapping shots of the locals as they frolicked and drank the free wine in casks. A glorious exception: Jeffrey Deitch dressed in a full suit with a jacket. And it was rumored that Koons, the world\u2019s most expensive living artist, would be making an appearance.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Installation view of \u201cKiki Smith: Memory\u201d at DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra, 2019. \u00a9 Kiki Smith. Photo by George Skordaras. Courtesy of DESTE Foundation<\/p><\/div>\n
Despite the firepower marshalled by a billionaire collector, the dinner was not a sit-down affair but a generous buffet of shawarma in pita and various meat pies and vegetable dips. It was all delicious. It was open to anyone on Hydra, anyone who happened to be on this tiny island without cars. It was hot, but there was ice cream for dessert.<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
Joannou was in the middle of the crowd of islanders, mostly talking to the locals and their adorably mewling children. He might be a billionaire collector, but he\u2019s a collector with a tendency toward the self-deprecating, with a populist bent.<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
\u201cWe come to Hydra all the time and I saw this place that was deserted and on the water, and I had this idea of doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
In fact, he doesn\u2019t call himself a collector. He is, in his words, an \u201canti-collector.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was against collecting,\u201d Joannou told me, stopping to chat in the middle of the dinner. \u201cI thought it was a very selfish thing, to take the work away from the public. I didn\u2019t understand it actually, that\u2019s why I hated it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
And he has a playful side that can get obscured by the money and the art-world influence. For instance, compared to the 500-foot-long, $600-million yachts owned by billionaire art collectors with less self-awareness, the yacht Joannou named\u00a0Guilty\u00a0is only 115 feet long\u2014not\u00a0that\u00a0big.<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
A collector of artists<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
Dakis Joannou was born in Cyprus to an industrialist father with construction projects throughout the hellinistic region. In 1974, following a Turkish invasion, the elder Joannou moved the family to London, and then to Athens.<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
By then, Joannou had begun working with his father, and their international network of businesses included hotels, real estate, and shipping Coca-Cola products. With business booming, the younger Joannou waded into the art world, but not by collecting\u2014he was staging shows at the Athenaeum InterContinental. This led him to set up the Deste Foundation (deste\u00a0is the Greek word for \u201clook\u201d), which he incorporated in Switzerland, for tax purposes.<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
In Geneva in the early 1980s, Adelina von F\u00fcrstenberg, the founder of Geneva\u2019s Centre d\u2019Art Contemporain, introduced Joannou to a young art advisor who worked for Citibank, Jeffrey Deitch. The young New Yorker was a habitu\u00e9 of the galleries in the burgeoning East Village scene, and in 1985, he brought a visiting Joannou to Meyer Vaisman\u2019s International With Monument gallery on East 7th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A.<\/p>\n
<\/u>\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n
It was the first major solo show for an artist named Jeff Koons, who was working on Wall Street to fund his increasingly expensive sculptural experiments. Joannou was taken by the most daring of them, from 1985:\u00a0One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Spalding Dr. J 241 Series), the first of the iconic floating basketball sculptures. He asked Veisman to arrange a studio visit, and after speaking with Koons, he bought it\u2014for $2,700, or a 10-percent discount off the asking price of $3,000.<\/p>\n
<\/u><\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Jeffrey Deitch, Jeff Koons, and Dakis Joannou at the opening of the exhibition \u201cEverything That\u2019s Interesting Is New,\u201d The Dakis Joannou Collection, The Factory, Athens School of Fine Arts, Athens, 1996.<\/p><\/div>\n
From there, he started buying more, primarily snapping up works by Koons\u2019s Neo-Geo pals\u2014Peter Halley, Ashley Bickerton, and Haim Steinbach. Joannou had developed a policy of not collecting artists he hadn\u2019t met beforehand. And with the main business humming along back in Athens, the fortysomething Joannou had time to meet artists from all over the world, first buying from other East Village galleries such as 303, which then showed Joannou-owned artists such as Christopher Wool, Robert Gober, Annette Lemieux, and Matt Mullican<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
He kept acquiring at a breakneck pace. When the famous dealer Anthony D\u2019Offay introduced Joannou to the work of Maurizio Cattelan, he began buying it in bulk, becoming a close friend and collaborator of the wily Italian conceptualist. In 2003, he was introduced to the work of<\/p>\n
Urs Fischer at the Venice Biennale and quickly became a big supporter. His current obsessions include Roberto Cuoghi, the Italian artist who this year was picked up by Hauser & Wirth, and the Los Angeles\u2013based artist Kaari Upson.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone said, \u2018You know, Dakis is not a collector of artworks, he\u2019s a collector of artists,\u2019\u201d he told me. \u201cThat kind of says it all. Because I really get involved with every artist. You get really close.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>Installation view of \u201cKiki Smith: Memory\u201d at DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra, 2019. \u00a9 Kiki Smith. Photo by George Skordaras. Courtesy of DESTE Foundation.<\/p><\/div>\n
Embracing the controversy<\/p>\n
I got a tour of Joannou\u2019s home in Athens during my time in Greece, and Upson and Cuoghi dominated the marble white atrium that greeted me upon my arrival, with Joannou and his wife Lietta standing at the center, shaking hands, smiling broadly. He then directed me upstairs, past little closets with David Shrigleys and bathrooms with Juergen Teller nudes and a hallway lined with tropicalia-washed Josh Smith paintings. The main living room was flanked by two gigantic George Condo portraits of Joannou and Cattelan. The paintings were clearly made from love. In one, Cattelan, the high priest of blasphemy, is wearing a clerical collar.<\/p>\n
The whole collection is marked by a sense of whimsy, a willingness to poke fun at oneself rarely seen among typically self-serious mega-collectors. There was an upside-down drawing of Joannou by the curator-turned-artist Francesco Bonami, Joannou\u2019s tie falling over his face. There was a Pablo Helguera cartoon of a king sitting while a scientist shows him a diagram of the solar system, with the king saying: \u201cNonsense! Everyone knows the sun revolves around Dakis Joannou!\u201d<\/p>\n
Portrait of Dakis Joannou by George Skordaras. Courtesy of DESTE Foundation.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s even a work that chronicles perhaps the most troubling episode in Joannou\u2019s life as a collector. In 2010, there was a public uproar over the fact that the New Museum devoted three of its floors to an exhibition of work from Joannou\u2019s collection, thereby presumably adding to its market value, while he also sat on the museum\u2019s board of trustees (he still does). When it was revealed that the New Museum\u2019s then-director of special exhibitions, Massimiliano Gioni, had previously worked for Joannou, and that the museum\u2019s director, Lisa Phillips, was a close friend, the New York Times published a story deriding the show as evidence of \u201ca dizzyingly insular circle of art world insiders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giving back to Greece<\/p>\n
While Joannou was building his collection, he was also building up the status of Deste in Greece. For years, it was staging shows in the cultural center of the Cypriot embassy in Athens, but in 1998, it inaugurated the first permanent Deste space in a former paper factory in the Neo Psychiko neighborhood, later expanding to another building in a former sock factory.<\/p>\n
In 2008, the Municipality of the Island of Hydra granted Deste the slaughterhouse space\u2014an unusual choice for a place to exhibit contemporary art.<\/p>\n
<\/a>DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra. Photo by Fanis Vlastaras and Rebecca Constantopoulou.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cWe come to Hydra all the time and I saw this place that was deserted and on the water, and I had this idea of doing something,\u201d Joannou said. \u201cI started with a specific concept, to have a mid-career artist do a serious project. It was not about younger artists experimenting or anything like this. It was about a mature artist really putting in some effort to connect to Hydra.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of what\u2019s interesting about the slaughterhouse is that the structure hasn\u2019t been altered much at all. It is not far removed from its use as a place to kill animals for butchering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a slaughterhouse,\u201d Kiki Smith said. \u201cYou can see all the apparatuses for killing goats. And so if you do anything in a space of that kind of physical harshness, you have to respond to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I walked down toward the Deste Slaughterhouse on that evening last month, I saw that Smith had responded to its unique character by placing work directly in the space where the animals were once killed. She said she had adjusted to the site by hanging out on Hydra for two weeks before the opening, taking in the distinctive out-of-time-ness of the island, where the only vehicles available are donkeys. As a result, the work in the show seemed perfectly attuned to the surroundings, and reflective of the country\u2019s propensity for mythmaking. There was an iron mermaid work installed on a stone wall in the small pen where the livestock were kept before their deaths. Candles lit metal lamps on the larger side of the space, where a fountain that resembled a large baptismal font was installed behind steel sculptures resembling water whipped up by Poseidon.<\/p>\n Just then, I turned around in the tiny space and nearly collided with Jeff Koons\u2014he had indeed come to town for the festivities, and was investigating every nook of the stone structure intently, sizing the space up.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very special place, and I\u2019m very excited for next year,\u201d Koons said.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I\u2019m having the summer show here next year,\u201d Koons said.<\/p>\n I had to confirm this with Joannou, and when I saw him at dinner, once again in his element in the middle of the Hydra locals, he confirmed that Koons\u2014the first artist he ever bought, the artist who designed his yacht, the most expensive living artist on earth\u2014would finally have a show at his art space in a slaughterhouse on the tiny island of Hydra.<\/p>\n Joannou saw Koons walking up the path, smiled at him, and then looked back at me and said, \u201cYou cannot miss next year.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nate Freeman<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Source: www.artsy.net<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Image: https:\/\/www.artsy.net\/article\/artsy-editorial-mega-collector-dakis-joannou-turned-remote-greek-island-art-mecca?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=editorial&fbclid=IwAR3JZQ3BfIVWoXWP5IoKDCxFzoKpShncNa495VNxYkWhVOnsDMOyHYyCeyM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a Monday in late June, after the Art Basel fair in Basel, Switzerland, the billionaire collector Dakis Joannou docked his yacht in the small harbor of the Greek isle of Hydra. The yacht\u2019s exterior is covered in a kaleidoscopic pattern that was designed by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1","rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg",900,609,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg",900,609,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?fit=300%2C203&ssl=1",300,203,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?fit=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"portfolio-square":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=570%2C570&ssl=1",570,570,true],"portfolio-portrait":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=600%2C609&ssl=1",600,609,true],"portfolio-landscape":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=800%2C600&ssl=1",800,600,true],"menu-featured-post":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=345%2C198&ssl=1",345,198,true],"qode-carousel_slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=400%2C260&ssl=1",400,260,true],"portfolio_slider":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=500%2C380&ssl=1",500,380,true],"portfolio_masonry_regular":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1",500,500,true],"portfolio_masonry_wide":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=900%2C500&ssl=1",900,500,true],"portfolio_masonry_tall":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=500%2C609&ssl=1",500,609,true],"portfolio_masonry_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=900%2C609&ssl=1",900,609,true],"portfolio_masonry_with_space":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?fit=700%2C474&ssl=1",700,474,true],"latest_post_boxes":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=539%2C303&ssl=1",539,303,true],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1",300,300,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?fit=600%2C406&ssl=1",600,406,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/post-1927.jpg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/author\/admin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Philosophy<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"On a Monday in late June, after the Art Basel fair in Basel, Switzerland, the billionaire collector Dakis Joannou docked his yacht in the small harbor of the Greek isle of Hydra. The yacht\u2019s exterior is covered in a kaleidoscopic pattern that was designed by...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33439,"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33437\/revisions\/33439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n