“Skin Fruit” will be the first exhibition in the United States
of the Athens-based Dakis Joannou Collection, renowned as
one of the leading collections of contemporary art in the
world. This will also be the first exhibition curated by
Koons, whose early work inspired the evolution of the
Joannou collection.
“Skin Fruit” will be on view from March 3 through June 6,
2010, and will include over 100 works by 50 international
artists spanning several generations. Focusing on the body
in contemporary art, the exhibition will spotlight the age-
old preoccupation with the human form as a vessel of and
vehicle for experience. Koons’s title “Skin Fruit” alludes to
notions of genesis, evolution, original sin, and sexuality.
Skin and fruit evoke the essential tensions between
interior and exterior, between what we see and what we
consume.
Starting with the first, now-legendary exhibitions, such as
“Artificial Nature” and “Post Human,” at his DESTE
Foundation’s non-profit museum in Athens, Dakis Joannou
has focused on works that present a new image of man. It
is no coincidence that his collection developed in the
cultural context of Greece, where Classical sculpture
defined the Western canon of anatomical representation.
Artists have arrived at a much more uncertain image of
mankind in this new century, in which bodies are still
idealized but also are assaulted by forces of our own
making.
Joannou’s collection is comprised of more than 1,500
works by 400 contemporary artists, from the most eminent
to those just emerging. For “Skin Fruit,” Koons has
selected sculptures, works on paper, paintings,
installations, and videos by a group of artists including
David Altmejd, Janine Antoni, Matthew Barney, Nathalie
Djurberg, Robert Gober, Mike Kelley, Terence Koh, Mark
Manders, Paul McCarthy, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Kiki
Smith, Christiana Soulou, Jannis Varelas, Kara Walker, and
Andro Wekua, among others.
The show will also premiere new works such as Charles
Ray’s re-envisioned Revolution Counter-Revolution
(1990/2010); a new public installation of Jenny Holzer’s
Selections from the Survival Series (1984); and a
special 3-D book project by Italian artist Robert Cuoghi,
and will include living sculptures by Pawel Althamer and
Tino Sehgal.
“Skin Fruit” will feature only one work by Koons – his
One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (1985) – the first
major artwork that Dakis Joannou acquired, initiating the
collection that would grow to be one of the world’s finest.
Within the context of the exhibition this influential object,
with its both familiar and mysterious orb suspended in
fluid, becomes a womb, a point of origin and of departure.
The installation for “Skin Fruit” has been conceived by
Koons as a kind of panorama, with frequent shifts in scale
and unconventional juxtapositions. Role-playing games and
dramas occur: a man will stage a religious ritual; a
sculpture literally sings out; white chocolate monuments
tower above visitor’s heads; voracious creatures eat
themselves and each other while bodies are buried or
frozen; icons and deities are adored or dethroned.
With the exhibition “Skin Fruit,” the New Museum launches
The Imaginary Museum, a new exhibition series that will
periodically showcase leading private collections of
contemporary art from around the world, providing the
opportunity for rarely seen, great works of art to be
accessible to a broader public.
The Museum invited Jeff Koons to curate the first in this
series. Koons had his first museum exhibition at the New
Museum in 1981. In addition to being one of the most
accomplished artists of our time, Koons is a committed
and highly informed art lover and collector whose interests
span from Greek and Roman sculpture to contemporary
art. Koons has said that he collects art “to have a world
besides my world, to have another field of experience.” It
is the combined perspective of artist, collector, and
connoisseur that he brings to the task as curator of the
New Museum exhibition. Jeff Koons and Dakis Joannou
have enjoyed a close friendship and artistic dialogue for
nearly three decades. Joannou has been a great supporter
of Koons’s work from the beginning of his career, and a
large concentration of Koons’s work from all periods is at
the core of the Joannou collection. Koons’s role as curator
reflects the ideals at the forefront of Joannou’s collection:
ongoing conversations and collaborations with artists.
Images, from top to bottom: Nathalie Djurberg, It's the
Mother, 2008, video with music by Hans Berg, 6 min;
Jeff Koons, One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank, 1985,
Glass, iron, water, and basketball; Janine Antoni,
Saddle, 2000, full rawhide; Robert Gober,
Untitled, 2009, beeswax, cotton, leather; Paul
McCarthy, Paula Jones, 2007, fiberglass; Tim &
Sue Noble & Webster, Masters of the Universe,
1998-2000, translucent resin, fiberglass, plastic, and
human hair; Roberto Cuoghi, Pazuzu, 2008, epoxy,
solvent varnish, fiberglass, polystyrene, and steel; Andro
Wekua, Sneakers 1, 2008, wax figure, aluminum
casted table and palett, akrystal board, and ceramic
shoes; Jannis Varelas, My dad is stronger than yours,
Rainbow Rocket Bill and Friend, 2005, pencil,
charcoal, oil, glitter, and collage on paper; Charles Ray,
Aluminum Girl, 2003, aluminum and paint.
Skin Fruit: Dakis Joannou collection seen by Jeff Koons
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- Loredana Mascheroni
- 05 March 2010