Dimitris Daskalopoulos ( el, Δημήτρης Δασκαλόπουλος; born 1957,
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...
) is a Greek entrepreneur who is known as founder and chairman of DAMMA Holdings SA, a financial services and investment company. He served as the Chairman of the Board of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) for 8 consecutive years (2006-2014). He is SEV’s Honorary President.
Career
From 1983 to 2007, Daskalopoulos was the principal owner, Chairman and CEO of Delta Holdings/
Vivartia
Vivartia Holding S.A. ( el, Vivartia Συμμετοχών Α.Ε.) is a food production conglomerate brand in Greece. Its head office is in Marousi, Athens.
Vivartia was formed by the merger of Delta Holding S.A. and Mechelany International S.A. ...
SA, Greece’s largest food conglomerate. In 2007, Greece’s
Marfin Investment Group
Marfin Investment Group (also known as MIG) is a Greek investment company created in 1998 as ''Marfin Α.Ε.Π.Ε.Υ.''. It has acquired several companies and has changed name several times since. In 2001 it acquired ''Piraeus Prime Bank'' and w ...
bought 30 per cent of Vivartia for 550 million euros ($758 million) from Daskalopoulos and Spyridon Theodoropoulos, its founding shareholders.
In addition to his business activities, Daskalopoulos served as Vice President of the
Confederation of European Business from 2013 to 2015, under the leadership of its president Emma Marcegaglia. In 2016, founded diaNEOsis,
a research think tank in Greece, which commissions studies and makes policy proposals on the major social and economic issues in Greece; he has been serving as the organization's chairman since its foundation.
Art collection
Since 1994, Daskalopoulos has been a collector of contemporary art and put together the D.Daskalopoulos Collection. His first contemporary purchase was ''The Painting in the Inner Egg'' (1993) by
Rebecca Horn
Rebecca Horn (born 24 March 1944, in Michelstadt, Hesse) is a German visual artist, who is best known for her installation art, film directing, and her body modifications such a''Einhorn'' (Unicorn) a body-suit with a very large horn projecting ve ...
.
[Rachel Spence (April 15, 2011)]
The power of instinct
''Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikke ...
''. On 17 November 1999, he notably purchased a limited-edition replica
of
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, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
's ''
Fountain
A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect.
Fountains were or ...
'' (owned by
Arturo Schwarz) was sold at
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
, New York, for $1.8 million; Daskalopoulos declared that ''Fountain'' represented the origin of
contemporary art
Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...
. The price set a world record, at the time, for a work by Duchamp at public auction. The collection now comprises over 500 works by 170 artists, including
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 ...
,
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
,
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst (; né
Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United King ...
,
Mike Kelley,
Paul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy (born August 4, 1945) is a contemporary 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 ...
, and
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West 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 and gender, whi ...
.
[Nate Freeman (July 21, 2014)]
Greek Collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos to Receive ICI's Annual Leo Award
''The New York Observer
''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper printed from 1987 to 2016, when it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainmen ...
''.
In 2003, Daskalopoulos made a joint acquisition with the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
of Barney’s sculpture ''Chrysler Imperial'' (2002); it now belongs fully to the museum.
Daskalopoulos is also a Vice President of the Board of Trustees of 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, preserv ...
; Chairman of the Collections Council of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and an active member of the Board of Trustees of the
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary ...
(since 2016), the
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 U ...
's International Council and the Leadership Council of the
New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...
, the International Board of 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, 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern win ...
and a founding partner of the
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the f ...
’s Future Fund (2011).
Thematic exhibitions based on the collection have been presented at the
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the f ...
, London (2010-2011), the
Guggenheim Museum
The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
Museums in this group include:
Locations
Americas
* The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...
, Bilbao (2011) and the
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is part of the National Galleries of Scotland, which are based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The National Gallery of Modern Art houses the collection of modern and contemporary art dating from about 1900 to t ...
, Edinburgh (2012-2013). In 2010, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao came under fire for announcing its plans for a show consisting of 60 works from the D. Daskalopoulos Collection, with critics claiming that a board member had too much curatorial control over programming, allowing his works to increase in value do to a high-profile exhibition. The museum countered by insisting that no works shown in the show, “The Luminous Interval,” could be sold for three years.
In April 2022, Daskalopoulos announced a gift of some 350 artworks by 142 artists; in addition to giving 140 pieces to Athens’s National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) and 110 to Tate, around 100 works are to be shared by the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
NEON
In 2013, Daskalopoulos founded NEON, a non-profit organization which works to bring contemporary culture in Greece closer to everyone. In 2016, NEON helped renovate the
Athens Conservatoire
The Athens Conservatoire () is the oldest educational institution for the performing arts in modern Greece. It was founded in 1871 by the non-profit organization Music and Drama Association.
History
Initially, the musical instruments that were t ...
and in 2021 NEON and Dimitris Daskalopoulos funded the renovation of the former Public Tobacco Factory -
Hellenic Parliament Library and Printing House which is gifted back to the state as a Cultural Center.
[Amah-Rose Abrams (December 14, 2020)]
Huge historic tobacco factory in Athens to be renovated into cultural space by 2021
''The Art Newspaper
''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...
''. In 2019 the organization staged an exhibition of work by
Antony Gormley
Sir Antony Mark David Gormley (born 30 August 1950) is a British sculptor. His works include the '' Angel of the North'', a public sculpture in Gateshead in the north of England, commissioned in 1994 and erected in February 1998; ''Another ...
at the ancient site of
Delos
The island of Delos (; el, Δήλος ; Attic: , Doric: ), near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island ar ...
.
diaNEOsis
Founded in 2016, diaNEOsis is an independent research and policy institute that produces research on current and important issues and Its studies arrive at concrete policy proposals. It conducts in-depth investigative journalism reports and produces open data research and related projects. Its activities are financed exclusively from private funds and Its operating costs for the first three years are covered in their entirety by Dimitris Daskalopoulos.
Other activities
*
European Roundtable of Industrialists
The European Round Table for Industry (previously known as the European Round Table of Industrialists), abbreviated ERT, is a cross-sectoral forum and advocacy group in the European Union consisting of some 60 European industrial businesspeople wo ...
(ERT), Member (1998–2008)
Recognition
* 2014 – Leo Award, awarded by
Independent Curators International (ICI)
* 2018 – Honoree at the 2018 Guggenheim International Gala, hosted by 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, preserv ...
References
External links
* D.Daskalopoulos Collection - http://ddcollection.org/en/
*NEON
http://neon.org.gr*DiaNEOsis
www.dianeosis.org/
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daskalopoulos, Dmitris
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Greek businesspeople
Greek art collectors