Independent Curator Cortney Lane Stell & The Dikeou Collection Announce
A Retrospective:
Devon Dikeou; Mid-Career Smear
February 20, 2020 – February 18, 2021
Opening reception at The Dikeou Collection, 1615 California St, 5th floor on Thursday, February 20, 2020, 6-8pm
“Over the course of a nearly three-decade career, Devon Dikeou has produced a body of work revealing a narrative, and often poetic, approach that blurs the frontiers between the intimate and the public, the past and present, art and life. This exhibition, which spans three sites in Denver, delves into the immense breadth of artworks that Dikeou has continued to develop from the 1990s through today.”
––Cortney Lane Stell, curator
Security Kiosk, 1990, Three-Dimensional Security Gate Installation with 3 Gates and 2 Sheets of Galvanized Steel; Please Douze (Lilas Blancs Dans Un Vase De Cristal), 2011 Ongoing, C-Print of a Hand-Blown Glass Vase and Fresh Flowers Arranged to Replicate One of the 16 Last Paintings Édouard Manet Painted Before Dying
Using “the world as her studio,” the over 60 works in the exhibition often smear the boundaries between art and life. Through this expansive studio practice and use of familiar physical and conceptual materials, her work focuses on the space of ‘in-betweenness,’ often drawing relational interconnection and revealing the space of human interaction. Organized stylistically and thematically, rather than chronologically, the exhibition highlights the range of Dikeou’s artistic expression. Also highlighted is Dikeou’s role as a collector of contemporary art, and editor/publisher of zingmagazine. By crossing traditional boundaries––using other’s artworks in her own installations, producing a magazine that gives a platform for experimental artistic projects, and collecting artworks from artists with zingmagazine projects––Dikeou is no stranger to finding connections.
Mid-Career Smear is an exhibition that forgoes conventional dividing lines and displays a fascination for the human-made world, calling to attention its inter-relatedness while softening the lines of the artist’s role—with a dose of humor and absurdity on top.
––CLS
Monthly programming, consisting of artist talks and curator conversations, workshops, readings, and musical events will take place at both at The Dikeou Collection and Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax, as well as a public unveiling of the Tiny Town project in Morrison, Colorado. A release party for the forthcoming Mid-Career Smear catalog will occur near the close of the exhibition in February 2021. Announcements will be made for all programs through our mailing list, zingrecsDENVER, www.dikeoucollection.org, www.devondikeou.com, and on the social media accounts listed below.
For press inquiries and image requests, please email info@dikeoucollection.org
About Devon Dikeou
Devon Dikeou lives and works in NYC, Austin, and Denver. Recent solo exhibitions include “Here is New York (E.B. White),” James Fuentes Gallery, NYC (2018); “Tricia Nixon: Summer of 1973,” Futura, Prague (2018); “Pray for Me”—Pope Francis I, James Fuentes Gallery, NYC (2017) and NADA NYC (2014); “Please,” The Contemporary Austin (2013) and Outcasts Incorporated, Paris (2015); “Not Quite Mrs De Menil’s Liquor Closet,” NADA Miami Beach (2012); “Pay What You Wish, But You Must Pay Something,” NADA Miami Beach (2013); “Between The Acts,” NADA Miami Beach (2014); “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys,” Artpace San Antonio (2011); “Reserved for Ileana Sonnabend,” NADA Miami Beach (2010); “Reserved for Leo Castelli,” The Independent NYC (2010); “From the Mixed-Up Files . . .” Art Basel Statements (1998). Notable group shows include “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star” (2013), “Temporarily Possessed” (2005), “The Art Mall” (1992), and “The Big Nothing” (1992) at New Museum; “Game Changer,” (2014) at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art; “Colorado 1990,” Denver Art Museum (1990). Residencies include Futura, Prague (2018); Artpace, San Antonio (2011); Ssamzie Space, Soeul (2002). Collections include Kenny Schachter, The West Collection, New Museum, and Outcasts Incorporated.
About The Dikeou Collection
The Dikeou Collection is a contemporary art collection in downtown Denver founded in 1998 by siblings, Devon and Pany Dikeou. Free and open to the public, the collection occupies three spaces in the Denver Metro area.
About the Catalog
There will be a 4-book box set catalog published and released at the close of the exhibition. Each book will feature one facet of Dikeou’s practice––studio, zingmagazine, and Dikeou Collection, with the fourth archiving her ongoing series What’s Love Got To Do With It?, a series of lobby directory boards documenting the who/what/when/where of her career. Additionally, there will be an index pamphlet charting the interrelations among these different branches. Also included are essays by Mid-Career Smear curator Cortney Lane Stell, Chief Curator of The Contemporary Austin Heather Pesanti, Mary Barone, Outcasts Incorporated founder and Director Géraldine Postel, artist Rainer Ganahl, writer Rachel Cole Dalamangas, Dikeou Collection Director Hayley Richardson, and zingmagazine Managing Editor Brandon Johnson.
Find Us Online
Instagram: @devondikeou, @dikeoucollection, @zingmagazine
Twitter: @devondikeou, @dikeouart, @zingmagazine
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/devondikeou, https://www.facebook.com/dikeoucollection/, https://www.facebook.com/dikeoupopup/,https://www.facebook.com/zingmagazinenyc/