ATHENS.- The DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art was established in 1983 by international art collector Dakis Joannou and is based in Athens, Greece. Through its exhibition and publishing program, the DESTE Foundation aspires to act as a host to innovative expressions, and operate as an open space for the redefinition of the current artistic production and emergent cultural realities.

The inaugural exhibition of Matthew Barney & Elizabeth Peyton is held in the DESTE Foundation’s new project space situated on the island of Hydra. The space used to be the island’s slaughterhouse, which will work from now on, as a project space of the DESTE Foundation with annual exhibitions.

Matthew Barney & Elizabeth Peyton present a site–specific installation together. The components of the exhibition will be exhibited afterwards as one work. The exhibition marks the first occasion in which Barney and Peyton have collaborated.

The exhibition A Guest + A Host = A Ghost marks a new display of the Dakis Joannou Collection at the DESTE Foundation. In what has become a yearly tradition, Dakis Joannou with the collaboration of artists, curators and friends – presents his collection in a new configuration.

Borrowing its title from one of Marcel Duchamp’s aphorisms, A Guest + A Host = A Ghost is constructed as a series of solo exhibitions, many of which have been conceived and installed by the participating artists themselves. A comprehensive presentation of some of the artists that Dakis Joannou has been collecting in depth over the past few years, A Guest + A Host = A Ghost showcases ambitious works, signature pieces, and new productions by: Pawel Althamer, Maurizio Cattelan, Paul Chan, Nathalie Djurberg, Marcel Duchamp, Urs Fischer, Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Paul McCarthy, Seth Price, Gregor Schneider, Kiki Smith, Kara Walker, Andro Wekua, and Franz West.

In a series of symbiotic encounters and parasitic relationships, the solo presentations are often interrupted by incongruous presences or perturbed by unusual juxtapositions: drawings by Kara Walker surround a tomb by Urs Fischer; Maurizio Cattelan’s homeless man kneels down in front of Kiki Smith’s Bat Woman; Robert Gober’s haunted rooms incorporate Gregor Schneider’s architectural fragments; Seth Price’s vacuum figures face off a work by Jeff Koons. Each artwork turns into the ghostly reflection of its neighbor, making it impossible to distinguish hosts from guests, friendly creatures from menacing shadows.