Dikeou Collection Denver a Quirky Find
One of the top private art collections in the world is located in the historic Colorado Building on the corner of 16th Street Mall and California Street in downtown Denver. The building is old and hasn’t yet been touched by the hand of contemporary architectural renovation. The interior is 1950s chic with dirty blinds and old parquet and linoleum flooring. A ride in the rickety elevator to the fifth floor is more than a little bit retro.
What are all these old signs that one used to find in lobbies directing people to the correct floor? White plastic letters on black background with titles like Post Crap and Romper Room? They are the titles of art exhibits from around the world in which Devon Dikeou has participated. In an ongoing art project she creates these signs featuring the name of the exhibition and the location along with the participating artists. The signs are just like the ones the enigmatic collector Leo Castelli had in the lobby of his building in New York. The series is titled: “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”
Love has a lot to do with what happens when one enters suite 515 and is greeted by two giant inflatable pink bunnies too large for the space, a work by artist Momoyo Tarimitsu and wanders through room after room of contemporary art that was once featured in an issue of Zing magazine, another of Devon Dikeou’s ongoing art projects. She’s completed 22 issues all filled with project proposed by artists. Those projects live and breathe in the stuffy rooms at the Dikeou Collection above the city sounds with views of building all around for a brief moment I turned to my art loving companion and said I felt that I was actually in New York and not Denver.
The Dikeou Collection includes: Agathe Snow, Chris Gilmour, Chris Johanson, Dan Asher, Drue Langlois, Giasco Bertoli, Juan Gomez, Janine Gordon, Johannes Van Der Beek, Jonathan Horowitz, Joshua Smith, Lawrence Seward, Lee Stoetzel, Lisa Kereszi, Luis Macias, Margaret Lee, Kisaki Kawai, Momoyo Torimitsu, Nils Folde Anderson, Ester Partegas, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Rainer Ganahl, Royal Art Lodge, Sarah Staton, Serge Onnen, Simon Periton, Tracy Nakayama, Vik Muniz and Wayde Guyton.