Dakis Ioannou (Leonidas Ioannou; ; born December 30, 1939) is a

Greek Cypriot Greek Cypriots (, ) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to the 2023 census, 719,252 respondents recorded their ethnicity as Greek, forming almost 99% of the 737,196 Cypri ...

industrialist and art collector. He is considered to be one of the leading collectors of contemporary art in the world and is famous for acquisitions such as the

Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish s ...

-designed yacht 'Guilty'.

Early life and education

Dakis Ioannou was born in

Nicosia, Cyprus Nicosia, also known as Lefkosia and Lefkoşa, is the capital and largest city of Cyprus. It is the southeasternmost of all EU member states' capital cities. Nicosia has been continuously inhabited for over 5,500 years and has been the capita ...

. Son of industrialist Stelios Ioannou, and co-founder of the Ioannou & Paraskevaides company, Ioannou graduated from Athens College in 1958 after moving to Greece. In 1962 he continued his education in the United States, receiving his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. In 1964, he completed his master's degree from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and in 1967 accomplished his Doctorate in Architecture at

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a Public university, public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is ...

, Italy.

Career

Ioannou entered the construction and civil engineering business in the late 1960s and ever since has diversified his holdings through numerous areas of international industrial commerce. Ioannou's core business is construction, with primary focus in the Middle East, North Africa, Greece, and Southeastern Europe. Ioannou is active in the hospitality sector, with holdings in the Athenaeum InterContinental Hotel in Athens and through Yes! Hotels, a chain of boutique hotels whose flagships are the

Karim Rashid Karim Rashid (born 1960) is an Egyptian-born and Canadian-raised American industrial designer. His designs encompass a wide range of products, including luxury goods, furniture, lighting, surface design, brand identity, and packaging. Accordi ...

-designed Semiramis Hotel and the

Campana Brothers The Campana Brothers, consisting of Humberto Campana (born 1953) and Fernando Campana (1961–2022), are Brazilian furniture designers. They stated that Lina Bo Bardi and Oscar Niemeyer were some of the big names who had a concrete influence on ...

-designed NEW Hotel in Athens. Ioannou is also involved in several other industries including Coca-Cola bottling, shipping, aviation, and real estate.

Art collection

Ioannou is a major collector of contemporary art and is the founder of the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, which was established in 1983. He is currently serving on the councils of several museums worldwide and has continuously been on ''ArtReview's Power 100 List'' since its inception—in 2004 he was ranked its number one collector in the world. Along with his extensive fine art collection, Ioannou's interest in furniture from the Italian radical design period of the late 1960s and 1970s has grown to be what is known as the 1968 Furniture Collection and which is the subject of a book created in collaboration with artist

Maurizio Cattelan Maurizio Cattelan (; born 21 September 1960) is an Italian visual artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His Satire, satirical approach to art has re ...

and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. In 2007, Ioannou established the destefashioncollection. Each year up until 2014, the DESTE Foundation commissioned an artist familiar with the fashion industry to reinterpret five inspiring designs from that year’s international fashion collections. The first exhibition of the destefashioncollection, combining five of the capsule collections (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012), was presented in the iconic storefront windows of Barney’s, New York in June 2012. The project was presented in its entirety in the exhibition "DESTEFASHIONCOLLECTION: 1 to 8" at the

Benaki Museum The Benaki Museum, established and endowed in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, is housed in the Benakis family mansion in Athens, Greece. The museum houses Greek works of art from the prehistorical to the modern ...

in Athens in 2014 and at

The Bass The Bass Rock, or simply the Bass (), is an island in the outer part of the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland. Approximately offshore, and north-east of North Berwick, it is a steep-sided volcanic plug, at its highest point, and is home ...

in Miami, FL in 2018. The Dakis Ioannou Collection over time, has been composed of works by a variety of both established and emerging artists, including:

Paweł Althamer Paweł Althamer (born 12 May 1967, Warsaw) is a Polish contemporary sculptor, performer, collaborative artist and creator of installations, and video art. Life and work In the years 1988-1993, he studied sculpture at the Warsaw Academy of Fine ...

Janine Antoni Janine Antoni (born January 19, 1964) is a Bahamian–born American artist, who creates contemporary work in performance art, sculpture, and photography. Antoni's work focuses on process and the transitions between the making and finished product, ...

Matthew Barney Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...

Ashley Bickerton Ashley Bickerton (May 26, 1959 – November 30, 2022) was a Barbadian-born American contemporary artist. A mixed-media artist, Bickerton often combined photographic and painterly elements with industrial and found object assemblages. He is assoc ...

, Paul Chan, Roberto Cuoghi,

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

Haris Epaminonda Haris Epaminonda (born 1980 in Nicosia, Cyprus) is an artist living and working in Berlin. Career Solo and group exhibitions include: The Museum of Modern Art, Aspen Art Museum, The New Museum, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Tate Modern, Secessio ...

, Urs Fischer,

Robert Gober Robert Gober (born September 12, 1954) is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs. Early life and education Gober was born in Wallingford, Connecticut.Peter Halley Peter Halley (born 1953) is an American artist and a central figure in the Neo-Conceptualist movement of the 1980s. Known for his Day-Glo geometric paintings, Halley is also a writer, the former publisher of ''index Magazine'', and a teacher; he ...

, Elad Lassry, Mike Kelley,

Joseph Kosuth Joseph Kosuth (; born January 31, 1945) is a Hungarian-American conceptual artist, who lives in New York and Venice,

, Mark Manders,

Paul McCarthy Paul McCarthy (born August 4, 1945) is an American artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Life McCarthy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1945. He studied art at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, and later continued to ...

, Tim Noble & Sue Webster,

Chris Ofili Christopher Ofili, (born 10 October 1968) is a British painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was Turner Prize-winner and one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in ...

, Charles Ray,

Josh Smith Joshua Smith (born December 5, 1985) is an American former professional basketball player who played 13 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Entering the NBA straight out of high school, Smith played nine seasons with the Atlant ...

Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS, feminism, and gender ...

, Christiana Soulou, Haim Steinbach,

Kaari Upson Kaari Upson (April 22, 1970 – August 18, 2021) was an American artist. The bulk of Upson’s career was devoted to a single series titled ''The Larry Project'' – paintings, installations, performances, and films inspired by a collection of on ...

, Andra Ursuta,

Kara Walker Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, printmaker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores Race (classification of human beings), race, gender, human sexuality, sexual ...

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

Andro Wekua Andro Wekua ( ka, ანდრო ვეკუა) (born 1977) is a Georgian artist based in Zurich, Switzerland, and Berlin, Germany. Wekua was born in Sokhumi and witnessed an ethnic conflict in Abkhazia in the 1990s. His father, the Georgian ...

Christopher Wool Christopher Wool (born 1955) is an American artist. Since the 1980s, Wool's art has incorporated issues surrounding post-conceptual ideas. Early life and career Wool was born in Chicago, Illinois to Glorye and Ira Wool, a molecular biologist and ...

, and Jakub Julian Ziolkowski. Works from the extensive collection have appeared in a number of major museums and art institutions around the world. A notable exhibition took place at New York City's

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

in 2009 named Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Ioannou Collection. In a 2023 interview, Joannou reflected on his legacy and approach to collecting while discussing ''Dream Machines'', a group exhibition at DESTE’s Hydra Slaughterhouse curated by Daniel Birnbaum and Massimiliano Gioni, and noted that he is exploring ways to preserve the DESTE Foundation's history through interactive digital tools, including artificial intelligence.

Memberships

Ioannou is a member of the board of trustees at the New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York; a member of the International Council of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York, where he also served on the Committee on Painting and Sculpture and the Library Council; and a member of the International Council of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, New York. He has also been a founding member of the International Directors' Council at the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preser ...

, New York, where he served as president between 1995 and 2005, and now serves as an Honorary Member. He is a member of the International Council of

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

, London, having also served as President of the

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

Council between 2005 and 2008, and a member of the International Council of the

Design Museum The Design Museum in Kensington, London, England, exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all fund ...

, London.

DESTE Foundation

The DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, established in Geneva in 1983, is a non-profit institution. DESTE's exhibition program promotes both emerging and established artists. A second location, the DESTE Project Space Slaughterhouse is located on the Greek island of Hydra. The DESTE Foundation has organized, in collaboration with the respective institutions, the exhibitions ''Urs Fischer - False Friends'' at the Museum of Art and History, Geneva in 2016; ''Skin Fruit'' at the

New Museum of Contemporary Art The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-name ...

, New York in 2010; ''Dream and Trauma'' at

Kunsthalle Wien Kunsthalle Wien is the city of Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city ...

, Vienna in 2007; and ''Translation'' at the

Palais de Tokyo The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...

, Paris in 2005. At the Slaughterhouse Project Space, DESTE has organized: * "The Mad and The Lonely" solo exhibition by artist

George Condo George Condo (born 1957) is an American visual artist who works in painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking. He lives and works in New York City. Early life Condo was born in Concord, New Hampshire. He studied art history and musi ...

on June 2024. * "Dream Machines" an exhibition curated by

Daniel Birnbaum Daniel Birnbaum is a Swedish art curator and an art critic. Since 2019, he has been director and curator of Acute Art in London, UK. Early life and education Birnbaum studied at Stockholm University, Freie Universität Berlin in Germany and Col ...

and

Massimiliano Gioni Massimiliano Gioni (born 1973) is an Italian curator and contemporary art critic based in New York City, and artistic director at the New Museum. He is the artistic director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation in Milan as well as the artistic dir ...

on June 2023. * "Apollo" a solo exhibition by

on June 2022. * "The Greek Gift" a small group show organized by

on June 2021 * "199" solo exhibition by Greek artist Kostis Velonis on June 2020 * "Memory" solo exhibition by

on June 2019 * "Laughterhouse" solo exhibition by

David Shrigley David John Shrigley (born 17 September 1968) is a British visual artist. He lived and worked in Glasgow, Scotland for 27 years before moving to Brighton, England in 2015. Shrigley first came to prominence in the 1990s for his distinct line drawi ...

on June 2018 * "Figa" solo exhibition by

on June 2017 * "Putiferio" solo exhibition by Roberto Cuoghi on June 2016 * "Hippias Minor" solo exhibition by Paul Chan on June 2015 * "The Secret of the Phaistos Disc" solo exhibition by

Pawel Althamer Pavel ( Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian: Павел; Czech, Slovene, and (although Romanian also uses Paul); ; ; ) is a male given name. It is a Slavic cognate of the name Paul (derived from the Greek Pavlos). Pavel may refer to: People G ...

on June 2014 * "YES" solo exhibition by Urs Fischer on June 2013 * "Animal Spirits" group exhibition on June 2012 * "Black Mirror" solo exhibition by

Doug Aitken Doug Aitken (born 1968) is an American multidisciplinary artist. Aitken's body of work ranges from photography, print media, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to narrative films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, installatio ...

on June 2011 * "We" solo exhibition by

on June 2010 * "Blood of Two" solo exhibition by

Elizabeth Peyton Elizabeth Joy Peyton (born 1965) is an American contemporary artist working primarily in painting, drawing, and printmaking. Best known for figures from her own life and those beyond it, including close friends, historical personae, and icons of c ...

on June 2009

Charitable contributions and recognition

Ioannou is actively involved in many not-for-profit organizations with a wide range of social activities. He heads the Christos Stelios Ioannou Foundation, a center for the intellectually disabled in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. He is also a supporter of the

University of Cyprus The University of Cyprus (Greek language, Greek: Πανεπιστήμιο Κύπρου, Turkish language, Turkish: Kıbrıs Üniversitesi) is a public university, public research institute, research university established in Cyprus in 1989. It ...

, having donated with his family the "Stelios Ioannou" Learning Resource Center, designed by internationally renowned architect

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...

and due for completion in 2018. In 2007, Ioannou was appointed to the Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors of the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

after the establishment of the Stelios Ioannou School for Research in Classical and Byzantine Studies.

Yacht ''Guilty''

Dakis Ioannou owns the yacht ''Guilty'', which was designed by Ivana Porfiri. The yacht's exterior was designed by contemporary artist

and was inspired by the iconic WWI naval camouflage, also known as "Razzle Dazzle", featuring bold geometric patterns in contrasting colors.

References

External links

Deste Foundation Official Site

Yes! Hotels

Monument to Now Official site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ioannou, Dakis Living people Greek art collectors Dakis Ioannou Dakis Ioannou 1939 births Athens College alumni Cypriot art collectors