Janus
Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture, 2024
The Kitchen partners with Berggruen Arts & Culture to present work from artist, writer, and poet Rhea Dillon (b.1996; lives and works, London, UK) at Palazzo Diedo, as part of the launch of the new Berggruen Arts & Culture exhibition space (from April 20). Two works by Dillon act as sculptural interventions in the space—an 18th-century building by architect Andrea Tirali, once home to one of Venice’s most powerful families and formerly a primary school and court.
Dillon has described her practice as “playing with ‘rules of representation’ to undermine people’s myths of contemporary Western culture, referenc[ing] the power of harnessing Black people’s natural abstracted existence, and refract[ing] embedded assumptions concerning gender and racial inequalities.”
In Janus pause leaking fortified enclaves, a sapele mahogany cross will slowly drip water onto the floor of Palazzo Diedo throughout the duration of the exhibition. The second work installed in the space is The Door of the Woman is the glass slipper (Atlas, in transit laid to rest), a 2022 sculpture that engages with the history of assemblage.
With this presentation at Palazzo Diedo, The Kitchen expands its relationship with Dillon, having presented her film (Working Title) Browning 2025 (2021) in The Kitchen’s online Video Viewing Room in 2022.
Janus is presented by Berggruen Arts & Culture at Palazzo Diedo in partnership with The Kitchen, with special thanks to Olivier Berggruen, Trustee at The Kitchen and The Kitchen’s Global Council for the special project by Rhea Dillon.
For more information from The Kitchen, see: thekitchen.org