Amy Larocca spends a little quality time with Dakkis Joannou in New York Magazine in advance of the New Museum show:
As a patron, Joannou has gone to great extremes for his artists, even looking into whether part of the George Washington Bridge could be shut down so as to truck a Koons work out to the airport. “I have one luxury in my life: I do whatever I feel like doing,” he has said regarding his collection. Or, as curator Dan Cameron told W magazine a few years back, Joannou “has an ability that few museums have. When he finds something that interests him, he can decide on the spot and buy, regardless of price.”
A year and a half ago, Joannou decided that his New York apartment was kind of blah, so he called his friend and adviser Jeffrey Deitch (the gallerist soon to head the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art), who commissioned six artists to “graffiti” all the non-windowed walls—or, rather, graffiti slender removable panels that could be placed over the walls. Ara Peterson covered a wall in a version of television static. Clare Rojas, whose panel is over the sofa, did a painting of two naked men, one visibly aroused, on two horses. On the floor is a wildly colored “quilt” by Jim Drain, which is made of stuffed stockings woven together and decorated with photos of Joannou’s four children and his wife of 30 years, Lietta.
