Deste Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art is an arts foundation in Nea Ionia, a northern suburb of

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. Housing the art collection of Greek businessman Dakis Joannou, it organizes exhibitions with the collection and commissions new work by emerging and established international contemporary artists.

Origin

The Deste Foundation was established in 1983 by Dakis Joannou, with the purpose of exploring the relationship between contemporary art and contemporary culture. Deste means "to see" (δέστε) in the

Greek language Greek (, ; , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic languages, Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy (in Calabria and Salento), south ...

. Between 1983 and 1996, when the foundation did not yet have a permanent exhibition space, the shows that took place in Athens were hosted at the House of Cyprus. In 1998 the Deste Foundation moved to its first permanent space, a former paper factory in Neo Psychiko redesigned by American architect Christian Hubert. Built as a sock factory in 1931, the foundation's current building was renovated by architect Christos Papoulias in 2006.

Activities

At the Deste Foundation, overviews of the Dakis Collection have been presented by curators like Massimiliano Gioni and Jeffrey Deitch. Since the 1980s, every summer the foundation organizes a series of contemporary art exhibitions on the island of Hydra (island), with works on show there in a former slaughterhouse. In 2014, Pawel Althamer turned the exhibition space into a toy house, with puppets resembling his and his patron’s family members, down to hair styles and tattoos. The puppets of Joannou and his wife, Lietta, sat in a red mini armchair. For the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

in Athens, the foundation organized a show that featured the work of more than 60 artists from Joannou’s collection. He chartered a plane from Art Basel that year for collectors, curators, dealers and artists as part of the cultural program around the Olympics. Beginning in 2009, the foundation has collaborated with the Athens-based Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art, co-organizing an annual exhibition of works by artists shortlisted for the biannual Deste contemporary art prize. In 2010, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York showcased the foundation's collection in a three-story exhibition, with Jeff Koons as the guest curator. In 2014, the foundation launched a series of contemporary art shows under a new partnership with the Benaki Museum in Athens, known for its collection of ancient Greek and Roman art.Gareth Harris (January 9, 2014)
Athens institutions partner up to show international contemporary art
'' The Art Newspaper''. Most exhibitions have publications to support the learning remit of the foundation.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Art museums and galleries in Greece Arts foundations based in Greece 1983 establishments in Greece Art museums and galleries established in 1983 Museums in Athens