#dikeou collection

[dikeoucollection]

Dikeou Superstars Monthly Roundup

A quick snapshot of what Dikeou Collection artists have been up to over the past month, and what to look forward to next month.

Devon Dikeou, Between the Acts (Virginia Wool): Jay Leno, 2014 Ongoing; Devon Dikeou, “WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?”: From Sculpture, 1991 Ongoing. Image courtesy of the artist

Work by Devon Dikeou will be exhibited in “Unsafe at Any Speed” curated by Kenny Schachter, opening at Morton Street Partners on March 15

Image courtesy of V1 Gallery

“Hairy Tales,” a solo exhibition by Misaki Kawai opens at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen on March 4

Image courtesy of the artist and news.sky.com

Chris Gilmour’s incredible cardboard constructions are now being used to create sustainable set designs for film and television

Image courtesy of Instituto Cervantes NY

Work by Ester Partegas is currently on view in “That” at Instituto Cervantes NY through April 2

Image courtesy of Sadie Coles HQ

Jonathan Horowitz and Simon Periton have work on view in “Repeater” at Sadie Coles HQ, London, through March 26

Image courtesy of Drew Broderick, Hawaii Contemporary

Lawrence Seward and Momoyo Torimitsu photographed with their work (Seward’s “Seward Sun” and Torimitsu’s “Somehow I Don’t Feel Comfortable”) at the Hawaii Triennial

Vik Muniz, “The Birth of Venus, After Botticelli” Triptych from Pictures of Junk, 2008. Image courtesy of the artist and Ben Brown Fine Arts

Vik Muniz: A Brief History of Art is on view at Ben Brown Fine Arts London through March 11

Image courtesy of the artist

“The change in policy says that we want everyone to have access to art-making and it’s not the privilege of the wealthy to be able to afford good art supplies.” - Lisa Kereszi, senior critic and director of undergraduate studies in art, on Yale School of Art’s recent course fee elimination

Anicka Yi, “Le Pain Symbiotique” (detail), 2014. Image courtesy of the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca

Anicka Yi “Metaspore” at Pirelli HangarBicocca, on view through July 24, features more than 20 installations spanning the last decade of her career

[dikeoucollection]

Dikeou Superstars Monthly Roundup

A quick snapshot of what Dikeou Collection artists have been up to over the past month, and what to look forward to next month. 

zingmagazine

Devon Dikeou and zingmagazine Managing Editor, Brandon Johnson, will be in conversation at Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax on November 9th for “X Marks the Spot: A History of zingmagazine, Artist-Run-Publishing, and the Future of Print” 

Devon Dikeou Studio and The Dikeou Collection

Devon Dikeou will be in conversation again the following week with “Mid-Career Smear” curator Cortney Lane Stell at The Dikeou Collection on November 18th for “What’s In-Between: Artist and Curator Conversation with Devon Dikeou and Cortney Lane Stell”

Johanna Jackson and Chris Johnson as photographed for The New York Times

Chris Johanson and his wife Johanna Jackson were recently featured in The New York Times article, “An Artist Couple Who Live Among the Furniture They Create”

Flyer artwork by Bree Dolan

Devon Dikeou and Brandon Johnson will have work exhibited at the is FAIR 20202021, co-curated by Dikeou Collection Director Hayley Richardson, opening at the Globeville Rec Center in Denver November 11-14

Illustration by Marcel Dzama from Between the Lines Coloring Book

Find Marcel Dzama’s drawings featured in Between the Lines Coloring Book from RxART

“Peace Bear with Chili Pepper” by Sarah Staton

Sarah Staton contributed a life-size bear sculpture to Bears of Sheffield charity auction

Lawrence Seward, “1989″ and Momoyo Torimitsu, “Business in New York” as represented in The Dikeou Collection

Lawrence Seward and Momoyo Torimitsu will both be featured in the 2022 Hawai’i Contemporary Triennial 

Anicka Yi, “In Love With The World,” image courtesy of Tate Modern

Anicka Yi talks about her new installation “In Love With The World” with The UK Standard, DPA, Vogue, and The Guardian

Chris Gilmour, “Ford” as represented in The Dikeou Collection

Chris Gilmour served as inspiration for Rochelle Township High School students who created relief cardboard sculptures from recycled cardboard boxes for their 3-D Studio art classes

[dikeoucollection]

Devon Dikeou “Mid-Career Smear” and Reclaiming the Ordinary

Devon Dikeou, “’What’s Love Got To Do With It’: From Sculpture,” 1991 ongoing; (detail) “Reserved for Leo Castelli: Since Cezanne (After Clive Bell),” 2012 ongoing

“In-betweeness” is a central theme to Devon Dikeou’s art practice, which she describes as the spaces and materials that set the stage for important events and human interaction. She takes a specific element of that space, like a sign board from a gallery lobby or a napkin from a cocktail party and magnifies its role in what transpired within its proximity. She often goes further to recreate the space itself, be it a Parisian café or a bedroom in The White House. This conceptual model lends itself to art that materializes as everyday objects and installations, but there is more to it than that. What makes Dikeou a master of this model is that she is not merely repurposing the ordinary but rather reclaiming and elevating it as something significant, worthy, and precious. We now exist in a time when people crave nothing but normalcy, and Dikeou’s works exhibited in her retrospective exhibition “Mid-Career Smear” at The Dikeou Collection satisfies that craving for the everyday.

Devon Dikeou, “Security/Secure,” 1989; (detail) “Do I Know You?,” 1991 ongoing; (detail) “The News,” 1991 ongoing; (detail) Security Ke-Master, 1991 ongoing

After an extended closure due to Covid-19, The Dikeou Collection officially reopened to the public in March 2021. Seeing new and familiar faces walk through the doors has been a refreshing reminder how important real-life art experiences are for everyone in the creative ecosystem, especially when that experience mimics “real life.” Security/Secure, The News, Do I Know You, Security Ke-Master. . . these are all objects one would see throughout the day, but in 2020 and 2021 thus far, they are now novel and dare I say, exciting. A man with his family visited recently, and while in the office (complete with an employee time clock and cards) he commented how he felt like he was at work, a place he had not been in close to a year. And the crazy part is that he actually seemed happy and energized by that realization.

Devon Dikeou, “’Takes A Licking, And Keeps On Ticking’—Timex Ad Campaign,” 1991 ongoing

Only in these strange Covid-times would someone revel in the fact that an art exhibition makes them feel like they are at their job. There is an inherent understanding that art experiences are special and meant to be appreciated because we carve time out of our busy schedules to have them. We seek opportunities to momentarily escape our normal lives and try to see the world through a fresh creative lens. Now that the world’s scope of normal is upended, we long to go back to the days of seeing businesses open their big front gates in the morning and grabbing a sandwich from the deli before heading into work or school. Devon Dikeou and The Dikeou Collection invite you to return to that world, just as you left it.

-Hayley Richardson

[diankatsiganka]

Dikeou Collection

The Dikeou Gallery in Denver, Colorado, is a gallery filled with a variety of contemporary art. Some of the pieces displayed include drawings, photographs, 3D sculptures constructed out a variety of materials, along with some performance and interactive art. Miyata Jiro is by far the most ephemeral piece displayed in the gallery space as it was a traveling performance piece that allowed the audience to briefly interact with the work for a moment as they continued with their quotidian lives.

Created in 1996, Miyata Jiro by Momoyo Torimitsu, is an interactive performance piece that consisted of a robot created in the shape of a Japanese businessman, and a human wearing a traditional nurse uniform that accompanied it. Torimitsu set the robot free in several urban locations in large cities that included New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Sydney, and documented the interactions of the public with the robot utilizing video cameras. The videos are displayed alongside the robot at the Dikeou Gallery.

Miyata Jiro is an ephemeral work of art because its exposure to the public can be considered fleeting. When one examines the videos that accompany the robot, they can see that most interactions with it were brief to nonexistent. This piece also effectively portrays the busy businessman persona: a person who is so addicted to and determined to get to work that they are willing to crawl through a dirty urban street to get there. It also portrays the busy businessman persona through the audience as most people appeared to be too busy to stop and look at the art that was interrupting their daily commute.

I considered this piece a powerful commentary on modern society: most people consider themselves too busy and are much too distracted to notice or interact with public art. Even though this was created over a decade ago, it is still relevant today and would convey a similar message along with eliciting a similar response from the public.

[rezaxazucar]

Erection of Somehow I Don't Feel Comfortable

Momoyo Torimitsu's piece Somehow I Don't Feel Comfortable is a 13 ft. piece installed in the Dikeou Collection gallery downtown Denver in an nondescript…

Two of the most striking artworks at the Dikeou Collection that I feel define 4D art depicting the ephemeral and time are pieces created by artists Juan Gomez’s and Momoyo Torimitsu. The entire wall framed with Gomez’s pieces that illustrate bodies contorted and sweaty through acts of sex is indicative of his capture of time and space. I especially like the movement captured through the drawings. The images where you can’t tell where one subject starts and ends to me talks about the nature of art, beauty and grotesqueness of two, three or four bodies colliding in during sex. I also enjoy the contrast of the caricatures the subjects are depicted in during such a serious, playful and sensual act. Seeing all the pieces at once makes me wonder if these were moments caught during one session or throughout a few, either way it travels the time in a way that is exciting.  

The most impactful part of Torimitsu’s bunny piece was the actual inflation of the two sad looking rabbits. The process of the pump putting air into the identical flaccid plastics paired with the sound of the generator for me felt like a performance and actual happening.  The process of the rabbits gaining shape and body for me was performative and depicted the structure as a subversive messaging.  

The photograph that I captured from the room where Gomez’s pieces are hanging has one of Torimitsu’s pink rabbits peeking into the room from the door frame. I really enjoy this capture as it meshes my two favorite pieces at the Dikeou Collection. A kind of innocence portrayed by the half rabbit peeking but not viewing into the room where Gomez’s subjects are in motion speaks to me of a time continuum from innocence to raunch, youthfulness to maturity, simplicity to complexity. Torimitsu’s bunnies as the Dikeou Collection website puts it are, “erect and purposeful, but also in a space that such an erectness almost does not fit, both emotionally and physically.” Here the piece’s title Somehow I Don’t Feel Comfortable is so appropriate in its inappropriateness.

[jaysito88-blog]

Looking at the different artist’s artwork, I noticed great works that had different messages and told different kinds of stories. Although there were many great and interesting pieces, there was one piece from one particular artist that stood out to me the most. Paul Ramirez Jonas’s picture book (Ink on Paper Folding Book) — or what I like to call it, “A book of Life” — really stood out to me. It almost seems as if this picture is going through time capturing people’s different moments in their life. That’s technically what a photograph does, It captures a moment in time for us. The way Paul organized this book was interesting; for one, if it was closed up, it would look like a regular book. When opened, it seems to tell a story. There are different pictures of different people in different ages. The book extends out and shows many pictures. I like how it starts out with different pictures of children, as you progress through the pages, the pictures of people grow in age. When the book reaches the end, it has pictures of elderly people. After looking at all these pictures over and over, I begin to wonder, I don’t even know who these people are. I also felt like in the way these pictures were organized I felt like it told a story. Individually and as a whole. When I look at the pictures, I see some people smiling, others a little more serious, and some with a little smirk. I feel like I begin to attach myself to each and every person in those pictures. I feel like I want to know who they are and where they came from. I feel like I could lear from their experiences. I think I felt it a little more with the elderly people just because they have lived through so much and seen many changes throughout their lives. Its definitely one of my favorite pieces.

[dikeoucollection]

Dikeou Superstars: Royal Art Lodge

Christmas is a time of year when a sense of childlike wonder and enchantment can brighten even the surliest of souls. It is also a time when the most spirited of folk can descend into nihilism. The members of the Royal Art Lodge – specifically Neil Farber, Michael Dumontier, Drue Langlois, and Hollie and Marcel Dzama – wrote a letter trying to articulate these sentiments that reads, “Dear zingmagazine, we have tried to understand Christmas.” And to accompany this letter are the collective’s Christmas Drawings, which consists of 41 small works on paper that synthesize this magical mixture of mayhem and merriment to poignantly encapsulate the spirit of the season. While they may appear cute and childlike on the surface, the Christmas Drawings possess a level of dark humor that only comes with the jadedness of adulthood. 

The Royal Art Lodge was an artist collective formed in 1996 that later dissolved in 2008. Its founding members, Michael Dumontier, Marcel Dzama, Neil Farber, Drue Langlois, Jon Pylypchuk, and Adrian Williams, were all students at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada who would meet on a weekly basis to create art using the Surrealist methods of collaboration and spontaneous response. A completed work highlights yet blends each artist’s distinct style from/with one another. The Christmas Drawings, of which there are 41, are chock full of Santas, candy canes, reindeer, and snowmen, but there are also ghosts, monsters, prostitutes, and other dangerous figures who wield guns and other weaponry. For every picture-perfect postcard vision of Christmas, the Royal Art Lodge finds a way to subvert it simply by adding a decapitated elf or termite-infested tree.

  The drawings at Dikeou Collection appear in

issue 18 of zingmagazine

, but it’s not the first time the Lodge clan dug their claws into the yule log. They also created

“Christmas Story” for issue 11

. The focus on one specific subject is key to the group’s conceptual underpinnings.

Flick Harrison

wrote an in-depth article on the RAL, and in it he states, “The drawings themselves pretend at pointlessness, isolated moments, useless knowledge, but the critical mass of a dozen or so of the images viewed in any sequence begins to create something entirely other, an Eisenstein montage which maps itself onto your subconscious.” The amount of jokes, characters, and scenarios presented on the walls of Dikeou Collection and pages of zingmagazine are but a speck in the RAL universe. And, if that weren’t enough, each of the artists work independently as well in various media. Marcel Dzama has worked in film, sculpture, design, and theater. Drue Langlois does animation and creates dolls and larger soft sculpture, like his

Polio with Palsy

which is also part of Dikeou Collection. Neil Farber and Michael Dumontier still do weekly art sessions in Winnipeg and create music together as Eyeball Hurt and The Medicine. They even made a tape of Christmas songs, some of which refer specifically to drawings found at Dikeou Collection. So if you get tired of hearing the same old Elvis or Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums, just

click here

to rock out to some “Christmas Deity” and “Sugarplum Fairy from the Soviet Union.” - Hayley Richardson

[dikeoucollection]

Dikeou Superstars: Simon Periton

The Dikeou Collection is housed in a historic building in the heart of downtown Denver. Known as the Colorado Building, it was originally constructed in the early 1890s and served as a department store and later was converted into an office building with a diverse group of tenants. One of those tenants was Morris Jewelers, which could have likely occupied a suite on the 5th floor where Dikeou Collection is located because there is a large, walk-in safe which is now home to Simon Periton’s Radiant Anarchy Doily. Created in 1998, Radiant Anarchy Doily is a brilliant representation of Periton’s dexterous papercutting abilities and personal perspective on popular culture. Periton’s three Barbed Wire Target cut outs, exhibited just outside of the walk-in safe, again serve as a nod to the artist’s interest in the intersections between art, history, and popular culture. Beyond his intended references, Periton’s grouping of works at Dikeou Collection magnify the historic elements of the space where they exist and contribute to the already rich narrative of the Colorado Building and the artwork within. 

Frieze Magazine featured Radiant Anarchy Doily on the cover of its 1998 September-October issue. Writer Michelle Grabner describes the work as “thin, beautiful and exact. The concentric rings of 'A's which comprise its doily pattern have as much revolutionary promise as a capital A inked out on the back of a teenager's notebook, suggesting neither a spoof nor a call to arms.” The contrasting pink and black colors reaffirm this inherent contradiction within the anarchy symbol, as does the highly controlled pattern of the doily itself and its history as a feminine, domestic item. This work’s placement within the safe, symbolic of capitalism and monetary regulation, adds another layer to Pertion’s roguish dualism. 

Barbed Wire Target I, III and IV allude to Jasper Johns’ seminal target paintings/assemblages from the mid-1950s. In her curatorial statement Devon Dikeou observes , that Periton “cleverly attacks the idea Johns addressed: formal space and color in terms of literal recognition (of the target as recognizable icon) and formal resolutions of space and color as one sees them. Periton's iconographic use of Pop imagery, one that bespeaks a certain youth and culture, fuses image and space, whereas Johns meant to defuse it through the use of images that provoked no meaning.” Additionally, while a target is something to be aimed for, to be struck, and represents a specific goal, barbed wire is a defensive tool meant to prevent intrusion. The metallic foil from which these are made is shiny and attractive, and draw the viewer toward these symbols of danger and exclusion. In a sly curatorial quip, the targets are exhibited adjacent to Vik Muniz’ Milan: Last Supper, extending their symbolism into religious territory as they become references to Christ’s crown of thorns. Periton’s astonishingly precise cut outs have earned him the title “punkish maestro of the scalpel,” and they were published for the first time anywhere in zingmagazine issue 12 . In his most recent exhibition at New Art Centre in Roche Court, UK, Periton created sculptural renditions of Radiant Anarchy Doily and the Barbed Wire Targets out of cardboard. By reconfiguring their structure and materiality, Periton continues to give new meaning to these works and the symbols upon which they are built. -Hayley Richardson