3 Collectors Thinking Outside the Box
Dakis Joannou
A constant on the top 200 collectors list since 1990, Dakis Joannou has been described as an “omnivorous” collector, a true patron and a revolutionary. Having built a fortune in construction and hotels, Joannou’s interest in art started at an early age when he’d just moved from New York to Rome in the mid 1960s. Surrealism, Pop and Duchamp’s Readymade quickly became the young collector’s holy trinity.
However, it would be another 20 years before Joannou established his famous DESTE Foundation, under the guidance of critic/curator, Pierre Restany, and curator, Adelina von Fürstenberg. From its very beginning, DESTE was a unique project that combined the visibility and responsibility of a public institution with the larger-than-life, adventurous, eccentricities of a “daredevil”. In describing the foundation’s first exhibition, “Emerging Images”, which was held in his family’s newly constructed hotel in Athens, Joannou fondly recalls the incident of rotting apples from the large-scale installation by Leda Papaconstantinou, and how the terrible odour had turned off hotel guests.
In 1984, Joannou was introduced to Jeffrey Deitch, who was then working as an art adviser in Geneva. This meeting would come to define DESTE’s signature brand of “no holds barred” visual representation. On their very first gallery-hopping trip in New York, Deitch brought Joannou to Jeff Koons’ very first show at International with Monument in the East Village. The collector was instantly captivated by Koons’ “One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank”. It was the beginning of a “beautiful friendship” between artist and collector. The installation was the first work to enter into the new collection, and to this day, it remains central to Joannou’s collecting philosophy.
In a 2016 interview, Koons described Joannou’s approach to collecting: “I think Dakis likes a Gestalt, a very strong sensation when you see something. He likes the senses and the use of feelings. Feelings become ideas. Ideas come about through sense-perception. And as soon as you explore ideas, you want to come back and connect that to the body again. There’s this dialogue with the body that’s also in classical Greek art. It’s all about the harmony of the body and the mind. Dakis never gets away from the body completely. He always remembers the body and the functions of the body – the needs and desires of the body. But at the same time, he’s able to dwell in ideas that are completely abstract – that are ideas for idea’s sake. Yet neither of them ever completely leave the other. They are polarities, but they always find a sense of harmony within the whole collection. And that’s just a classic Greek ideal.”
Today, DESTE Foundation is one of the most renowned art institutions in the world. With over 600 works in the core collection, the Foundation continues to support emerging artists, and since 1999, the DESTE Prize has promoted generations of young Greek artists.
Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Having grown up in a family of collectors (her mother collected Meissen and Sevres porcelain, while her father’s collection of historical plastic objects is on display at a museum in Pont Canavese), Sandretto Re Rebaudengo is no stranger to collecting. Before she turned her attention to contemporary art, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo had already built a world-class collection of historic photography, as well as pill boxes (over 500) and 20th century American costume jewellery (3,000 seminal pieces).
The real turning point came in 1992, after a visit to Anish Kapoor’s London studio, when Sandretto Re Rebaudengo came away with a sculpture made of three, coloured bulbs. The collector recalls those early days, “Nicholas Logsdail, whose [Lisson Gallery] was such an important place to see new work, gave me some fundamental advice, but especially to follow my feelings and my instinct…I went on to learn about art by visiting artists in their studios and getting to know them. I learned that art has the ability to communicate to us what is both strange and familiar.”
Within 3 years, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo had established her foundation, which was first housed in the 18th century Palazzo Re Rebaudengo in Guarene d’Alba, 40km from Turin. The foundation was moved some 15 years ago into a brand new, 3,500 sqm space designed by renowned architect, Claudio Silvestrin. Dedicated to supporting and promoting young contemporary artists, the foundation has an extensive exhibition programme.
Today, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo is one of the most influential figures in the contemporary art world, with a collection of more than 1,500 works that were largely created over the past 25 years. Artists in her collection include Maurizio Cattelan, Ian Cheng, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Cerith Wyn Evans, Damien Hirst, Josh Kline, Sarah Lucas, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Mark Manders, Charles Ray, Cindy Sherman, Rudolf Stingel, Rosemarie Trockel, and Adrian Villar Rojas, to name a few.
More recently, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo has moved away from simply collecting works to commissioning unique pieces from artists. One of the highlights at Venice Biennale 2017 was a complex installation made of mirrors and steel frames by Alicja Kwade, which was only made possible through the collector’s support.
“I aim to not buy already accomplished artists, I’m not looking for “remarkable names”, on the contrary I collect the artwork, clear compared to the moment wherein it is made, it has to tell the present and disclose the future.” - Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Sylvain & Dominique Levy
Sylvain and Dominique Levy first started collecting as a young couple, visiting flea markets around Paris, and buying works to decorate their home. Neither of them came from collector families, but both had developed an eye for beauty, having grown up around the fashion world. Domique’s mother, Rose Torrente-Mett, had founded Torrente, a French haute couture label, while her uncle, Ted Lapidus, was a highly influential designer in the 1960s. Sylvain himself ran French fashion house, Caroll, before turning to real estate development.
After furnishing their home, the Levys turned their attention to the blank walls. In the early 1990s, they began collecting Western contemporary art, including works by Robert Rauschenberg, Antoni Tapies, and Manolo Valdes. At the time, these works were mainly acquired as “trophies”, and it wasn’t until they became interested in contemporary design that the collecting turned a more serious tone. As Dominique recalls, “We had friends who owned the Gallery Kreo and at the time, pieces by Ron Arad and the Bouroullec brothers were really accessible. No one wanted them. That’s when we started to buy, not just to decorate our house, and we had to take up storage space. But when you’re no longer constrained by space, that’s when you can really have a lot of fun.”
Eventually the couple lost interest in design as the market became more price-driven. Nonetheless their Parisian apartment still remains a treasure trove of 20th century design. “The flat is very much a reflection of our life as collectors and our personal taste…this is not a show flat – the children used to sit on this Ron Arad chair…”
It was in 2005 during their first trip to Shanghai when the Levys were introduced to Lorenz Helbling, founder of ShanghART gallery, that their real collecting adventure began. A visit to artist Ding Yi’s studio marked the beginning of the dslcollection. Today, the collection includes over 250 Chinese contemporary artists, from those who were already active during the 1989 Chinese Avant-Garde Exhibition, to the youngest generation of artists and academy graduates.
What sets dslcollection apart is its innovative approach to collecting. The couple draws upon a museum approach, which means acquiring a wide range of artworks and providing opportunities to share it with the public. In order to maximise direct access to the artworks, the collection has always relied on the latest technology.
“Be it space, time or means of dissemination, dslcollection always tries to embody the great changes of its time.” – Sylvain Levy