黑料不打烊

Following the postponement of a special project by Jeff Koons commissioned for the DESTE Foundation鈥檚 Project Space at the old Slaughterhouse in Hydra, Greece, due to COVID-19, a group of artists and friends of Dakis Joannou and the Foundation have come together to swiftly organize a small group show. This presentation doubles as a portrait of the collector and serves as a miniature survey of his collection. Coordinated by Massimiliano Gioni, The Greek Gift brings together a series of new and existing works, alongside found objects and impromptu responses from a variety of artists who have maintained decades-long relationships with Dakis Joannou and the DESTE Foundation. 

Part-divertissement and part-collaborative project, this small exhibition borrows its title from a chess tactic鈥攖he 鈥淕reek gift sacrifice.鈥� This move, for which a player sacrifices a bishop in order to checkmate, in turn is believed to have been named after the mythical gift of the Trojan Horse from the Achaeans to the city of Troy. As any gift, it is a complex tangle of generosity and self-interest. As in a chess game, several artists have been invited to 鈥渕ake a move鈥� by selecting artworks and objects from the collection; in response, Joannou and Gioni countered by choosing other pieces. Functioning much like a surrealist 鈥渆xquisite corpse,鈥� the exhibition sets in motion a series of chain reactions between artworks鈥攁 domino effect of intense proximities. 

Installed in the small, cavernous spaces of Hydra鈥檚 Slaughterhouse, the works sit side by side, like toys in a doll house, alongside Marcel Duchamp鈥檚 maxim 鈥淎 Guest + A Host = A Ghost.鈥� Serving as inspiration for the exhibition, Duchamp鈥檚 piece of word play, which appears inscribed in a 1968 issue of the magazine S.M.S., suggests the transformations that occur when disparate ideas and objects are combined.