Dakis Joannou (Leonidas Ioannou; el, Δάκης Ιωάννου; born December 30, 1939) is a

Greek Cypriot Greek Cypriots or Cypriot Greeks ( el, Ελληνοκύπριοι, Ellinokýprioi, tr, Kıbrıs Rumları) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to the 2011 census, 659,115 r ...

industrialist and art collector. He is considered to be one of the leading collectors of contemporary art in the world and is famous for acquisitions such as the

Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-Surface fi ...

-designed yacht 'Guilty'.

Early life and education

Dakis Joannou was born in

Nicosia, Cyprus Nicosia ( ; el, Λευκωσία, Lefkosía ; tr, Lefkoşa ; hy, Նիկոսիա, romanized: ''Nikosia''; Cypriot Arabic: Nikusiya) is the largest city, capital, and seat of government of Cyprus. It is located near the centre of the Mesaori ...

. Son of industrialist Stelios Joannou, and co-founder of the

Joannou & Paraskevaides Joannou & Paraskevaides was a Cypriot international building, civil and electromechanical engineering contractor with an involvement in the energy (oil and gas) and industrial sectors operating in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Asia. ...

company, Joannou graduated from Athens College in 1958 after moving to Greece. In 1962 he continued his education in the United States, receiving his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. In 1964, he completed his master's degree from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and in 1967 accomplished his Doctorate in Architecture at

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a public research university located in Rome, Ita ...

, Italy.

Career

Joannou entered the construction and civil engineering business in the late 1960s and ever since has diversified his holdings through numerous areas of international industrial commerce. Joannou's core business is construction, with primary focus in the Middle East, North Africa, Greece, and Southeastern Europe. Joannou is active in the hospitality sector, with holdings in the Athenaeum InterContinental Hotel in Athens and through Yes! Hotels, a chain of boutique hotels whose flagships are the

Karim Rashid Karim Rashid (born 1960) is an Egyptian-born and Canadian raised industrial designer. His designs include luxury goods, furniture, lighting, surface design, brand identity and packaging. ''Time'' magazine has described him as the "most famous ind ...

-designed Semiramis Hotel and the Campana Brothers-designed NEW Hotel in Athens. Joannou is also involved in several other industries including Coca-Cola bottling, shipping, aviation, and real estate.

Art collection

Joannou is a major collector of contemporary art and is the founder of the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, which was established in 1983. He is currently serving on the councils of several museums worldwide and has continuously been on ''ArtReview's Power 100 List'' since its inception—in 2004 he was ranked its number one collector in the world. Along with his extensive fine art collection, Joannou's interest in furniture from the Italian radical design period of the late 1960s and 1970s has grown to be what is known as the 1968 Furniture Collection and which is the subject of a book created in collaboration with artist

Maurizio Cattelan Maurizio Cattelan (born 21 September 1960) is an Italian artist. Known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations, Cattelan's practice also includes curating and publishing. His satirical approach to art has resulted in him bei ...

and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. In 2007, Joannou established the destefashioncollection. Each year up until 2014, the DESTE Foundation commissioned an artist familiar with the fashion industry to reinterpret five inspiring designs from that year’s international fashion collections. The first exhibition of the destefashioncollection, combining five of the capsule collections (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012), was presented in the iconic storefront windows of Barney’s, New York in June 2012. The project was presented in its entirety in the exhibition "DESTEFASHIONCOLLECTION: 1 to 8" at the

Benaki Museum The Benaki Museum, established and endowed in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, is housed in the Benakis family mansion in downtown Athens, Greece. The museum houses Greek works of art from the prehistorical to the ...

in Athens in 2014 and at

The Bass The Bass Rock, or simply the Bass (), ( gd, Creag nam Bathais or gd, Am Bas) is an island in the outer part of the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland. Approximately offshore, and north-east of North Berwick, it is a steep-sided volcan ...

in Miami, FL in 2018. The Dakis Joannou Collection over time, has been composed of works by a variety of both established and emerging artists, including:

Paweł Althamer Paweł Althamer (born 12 May 1967, Warsaw) is a Polish contemporary sculptor, performer, collaborative artist and creator of installations, and video art. Life and work In the years 1988-1993, he studied sculpture at the Warsaw Academy of Fin ...

Janine Antoni Janine Antoni (born January 19, 1964) is a Bahamian–born American artist, who creates contemporary work in performance art, sculpture, and photography. Antoni's work focuses on process and the transitions between the making and finished product, ...

Matthew Barney Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...

Ashley Bickerton Ashley Bickerton (May 26, 1959 – November 30, 2022) was a Barbadian-born American contemporary artist. A mixed-media artist, Bickerton often combined photographic and painterly elements with industrial and found object assemblages. He is asso ...

, Paul Chan, Roberto Cuoghi,

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

, Haris Epaminonda,

Urs Fischer Urs Fischer (born 2 May 1973) is a Swiss-born contemporary visual artist living in New York City. Fischer’s practice includes sculpture, installation and photography. Education and early career Born to two doctors as the second of two children ...

Robert Gober Robert Gober (born September 12, 1954) is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs. Early life and education Gober was born in Wallingford, Connecticut and studied literatu ...

Peter Halley Peter Halley (born 1953) is an American artist and a central figure in the Neo-Conceptualist movement of the 1980s. Known for his Day-Glo geometric paintings, Halley is also a writer, the former publisher of ''index Magazine'', and a teacher; he ...

, Elad Lassry, Mike Kelley,

Joseph Kosuth Joseph Kosuth (; born January 31, 1945), an American conceptual artist, lives in New York and London,

, Mark Manders,

Paul McCarthy Paul McCarthy (born August 4, 1945) is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Life McCarthy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1945. He studied art at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, and later continued ...

, Tim Noble & Sue Webster,

Chris Ofili Christopher Ofili, (born 10 October 1968) is a British Turner Prize-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in T ...

, Charles Ray,

Josh Smith Joshua Smith (born December 5, 1985) is an American former professional basketball player who played 13 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Entering the NBA straight out of high school, Smith played nine seasons with the Atlant ...

Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, whil ...

, Christiana Soulou,

Haim Steinbach Haim Steinbach (born Rehovot, Israel, 1944) is an Israeli-American artist, based in New York City. His work consists of arrangements of everyday objects, presented in “Displays” and shelves of his own making. Life and work Since the late 1970s ...

, Kaari Upson, Andra Ursuta,

Kara Walker Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best ...

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

, Andro Wekua, Christopher Wool, and Jakub Julian Ziolkowski. Works from the extensive collection have appeared in a number of major museums and art institutions around the world. A notable exhibition took place at New York City's

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...

in 2009 named Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection.

Memberships

Joannou is a member of the board of trustees at the New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York; a member of the International Council of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York, where he also served on the Committee on Painting and Sculpture and the Library Council; and a member of the International Council of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York. He has also been a founding member of the International Directors' Council at the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preserv ...

, New York, where he served as president between 1995 and 2005, and now serves as an Honorary Member. He is a member of the International Council of

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London, having also served as President of the

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

Council between 2005 and 2008, and a member of the International Council of the Design Museum, London.

DESTE Foundation

The DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, established in Geneva in 1983, is a non-profit institution. DESTE's exhibition program promotes both emerging and established artists. A second location, the DESTE Project Space Slaughterhouse is located on the Greek island of Hydra. The DESTE Foundation has organized, in collaboration with the respective institutions, the exhibitions ''Urs Fischer - False Friends'' at the Museum of Art and History, Geneva in 2016; ''Skin Fruit'' at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York in 2010; ''Dream and Trauma'' at

Kunsthalle Wien Kunsthalle Wien is the city of Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_of ...

, Vienna in 2007; and ''Translation'' at the

Palais de Tokyo The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...

, Paris in 2005.

Charitable contributions and recognition

Joannou is actively involved in many not-for-profit organizations with a wide range of social activities. He heads the Christos Stelios Ioannou Foundation, a center for the intellectually disabled in

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

. He is also a supporter of the University of Cyprus, having donated with his family the "Stelios Ioannou" Learning Resource Center, designed by internationally renowned architect

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and '' Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has o ...

and due for completion in 2018. In 2007, Joannou was appointed to the Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

after the establishment of the Stelios Ioannou School for Research in Classical and Byzantine Studies.

Yacht ''Guilty''

Dakis Joannou owns the yacht ''Guilty'', which was designed by Ivana Porfiri. The yacht's exterior was designed by contemporary artist

and was inspired by the iconic WWI naval camouflage, also known as "Razzle Dazzle", featuring bold geometric patterns in contrasting colors.

References

External links

Deste Foundation Official Site

Yes! Hotels

Monument to Now Official site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joannou, Dakis Living people Greek art collectors Dakis Joannou Dakis Joannou 1939 births