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![]() The outcome is a broad-ranging presentation of contemporary art (there are works in all media) that takes no single direction, but attempts to be as balanced and varied as possible, within, however, the context of an art collection whose focus is on the Anglo-Saxon contemporary scene and, somehow, on an «American,» pop-like, more extroverted aesthetic. They have all worked together in selecting the works from the Dakis Ioannou collection and have presented them in a way that includes different points of views in one entity. Ioannou, whose influence and reputation as an art collector is world renowned, has gathered five international curators from three different generations to collaborate in «Monument to Now.» The curators are: Dan Cameron, curator at New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as curator of the recent Istanbul biennale Alison Gingeras, curator at Pompidou’s National Museum of Modern Art in Paris Massimiliano Gioni who was one of the curators at the 50th Venice Biennale and curator of the 2004 Manifesta biennale Nancy Spector, curator of contemporary art at New York’s Guggenheim Museum and Jeffrey Deitch, a long-time collaborator of Ioannou’s and of one of New York’s most renowned curators of contemporary art. George Lappas, Nikos Navridis and the young Lina Theodorou are the exhibition’s three Greek participants. Included among them are: Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Robert Gober, Olafur Eliasson, Kiki Smith, Kara Walker, Nari Ward, Douglas Gordon, Liza Lou, Ghada Amer, Matthew Barney, Gilbert & George and Charles Ray. It includes works by 61 international artists, most of them established, as well as several who are up-and-coming in the art world. Extending throughout a large industrial building in the heart of Nea Ionia, as well as at the Deste Foundation in Neo Psychico, «Monument to Now» is the second-biggest display of the collection of Cypriot businessman Dakis Ioannou after «Everything that is Interesting is New» which was held in 1996 at the Athens School of Fine Arts. It takes an open-minded, relaxed approach to art, while also acknowledging its fluidity and diversity. «Monument to Now,» which is the title of this long-awaited exhibition and one of the most ambitious Athens 2004 cultural events, expresses, by its very title, this punning ambiguity and playful mood. Balancing between form and content, decoration and meaning, Wool’s work annihilates the very meaning it produces: it plays on ambiguity, predictability and surprise. In one of Wool’s works using graphics and words as imagery, the painting reads: «If you can’t take a joke, you can get the fuck out of my house.» Although in bold, black print, all the more prominent against a white background, the words are not necessarily discernible as words carrying any particular message, but as letters that can be enjoyed for their visual qualities. ![]() At the end of the vast and impeccably arranged exhibition of the Dakis Ioannou contemporary art collection, it is a work by the renowned American artist Christopher Wool that sums up the playful mood and upbeat, contemporary mood that runs throughout the show. ![]()
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