Bøger udgivet af Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art

Ametria, an exhibition at the Benaki Museum in Athens, celebrates excess and accumulation. Against the common Western supremacy of moderation, artist Roberto Cuoghi assembles a disorienting labyrinth of contemporary artwork and historical objects drawn from the Benaki Museum's collection.

Through painting, performance, sculpture and design, New York-based artist Kerstin Brätsch (born 1979) depicts the mutation of images over time, and the volatility of data consumption. This book includes an essay by Massimiliano Gioni on her engagement with the social lives of images.

Putiferio documents the opening night performance and exhibition by Italian artist Roberto Cuoghi (born 1973) at DESTE's Project Space on the island of Hydra. In Latin, "putiferio" literally means "to bring the stink," signifying chaos or a taste of hell. The fantastical installation depicts an onslaught of ceramic crabs, many of which were fired on-site during the dramatic opening that took place on the rare, simultaneous occasion of the summer solstice and a full moon (an event known as a "Strawberry Moon").Inside this volume is an extensive selection of photographs taken before, during and after Cuoghi's visceral performance at the island's former slaughterhouse, alongside an incantation written by the artist.

A hybrid of archive and oral history, Deste 33 Years: 1983-2015 tells the colorful and nontraditional story of Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art and its founder, Dakis Joannou, whose deeply personal approach has informed the foundation's ability to embody a given cultural moment--all while defying convention. "Deste was always really about ideas," Joannou says. "And the first idea was to create a museum of contemporary culture. Looking back, I'm not sure I was really collecting art. I think I was collecting relationships." Retracing more than three decades of one of the world's most important contemporary art foundations through archival photographs, press clippings, critical reviews, correspondence and unabashed conversations with many main protagonists--Maurizio Cattelan, Jeffrey Deitch, Urs Fischer, Massimiliano Gioni and Jeff Koons, among others--this more than 850-page book walks the reader through not only the extraordinary, artist-centric work, but also through the recent and entertaining history of contemporary art itself.

An unusual hybrid between a solo exhibition and a group show, Urs Fisher: False Friends places the oeuvre of Swiss artist Urs Fischer (born 1973) in conversation with the work of a selection of his peers: Pawel Althamer, Maurizio Cattelan, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Robert Gober, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith. Drawn from the holdings of the Dakis Joannou Collection and installed in the beautiful spaces of Geneva's Museum of Art and History, False Friends proposes unexpected connections between artworks and aesthetics, methods and materials, offering a reading of contemporary art as a magnetic field of elective affinities and striking variations--a cacophonic concerto of forms.

In 2013 the Deste Foundation commissioned Diller, Scofidio + Renfro to curate a capsule collection and integrate the selected works into an independent project. The Look, a narrative in 18 scenes about youth, aging and identity, examines the notion of the classic in fashion and architecture.

An artist's book and a solitary walk through the exhibition The System of Objects, this publication consists of two slipcased paperback books that represent Dakis Joannou's imaginative, inspirational and unexpected collection of objects, art works, props and unusual architectural elements. With an unprecedented combination of open areas, gangways, cages, black holes and dead ends, The System of Objects is experienced by visitors as a labyrinth and a revelation. The installation itself represents an original experience due to the several structural modifications on the building, making it a consistent and relevant part of the general concept of the project and empowering the presence of the pieces. The System of Objects is a straight and complex representation of the restless, constantly growing, visionary approach of a collector and his inventiveness.

Featuring works from the Dakis Joannou Drawing Collection, Animal Spirits comments on the current global crisis and the cultural climate it has fostered. The book's title references British economist John Maynard Keynes' idea that "animal spirits"--emotional factors that cannot be quantified, and that are often downplayed by economists--are crucial to the understanding of economic dynamics. Comprised of the selected artworks, as well as installation photographs, the book articulates a startling worldwide social relapse and shows how contemporary artists are negotiating our precarious present. Edited by Karen Marta, with an essay by Nadja Argyropoulou and Yorgos Tzirtzilakis, Animal Spirits includes work by Huma Bhabha, Paul Chan, Brian DeGraw, Sam Durant, Adam Helms, Christian Holstad, Cameron Jamie, Kim Jones, Panos Koutrouboussis, Dominic McGill, Tom Sachs, William Scott, Dash Snow and Kelley Walker.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Figa at the DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra, Greece, June 20-September 30, 2017.

In placing us at a remove from our relationships to familiar, domestic objects and environments, the labor-intensive work of Robert Gober (born 1954) defies our understanding of accepted conventions and draws attention to the movement of meaning between materials and across personal histories. Part of the 2000 Words series, conceived and commissioned by Massimiliano Gioni and published by the Deste Foundation, 2000 Words: Robert Gober presents the entirety of the sculptor's works in the Dakis Joannou Collection and includes an essay by Johanna Burton that examines how the artist's work alloys personal histories with collective experience.

Imbued with the collective memories of Romanian culture, Andra Ursuta's (born 1979) work uses her grim past to tackle our harsh present. This book includes an essay by Ali Subotnik on Ursuta's stark recreations of cultural turmoil.