Rhea Dillon

The Kitchen partners with Berggruen Arts & Culture to present two works by artist, writer, and poet Rhea Dillon that act as sculptural interventions within Palazzo Diedo. In Janus *Pause* Leaking Fortified Enclaves (2020), Dillon questions the Black woman’s access to amorphicity, via a consideration of Jesus’ shapeshifting and crucifixion, to connect Christianity and colonisation. Colonised cultures were “sanitised” through Christianity, wherein water offered spiritual sanitisation, echoed in the postmodern preoccupation with hyper-sanitary spaces. Janus slowly drips water, equivalent to the slippage of global class and colonial structures, much like a “leaking fortified enclave”. Dillon inquires: who will be tasked with cleaning up this mess: the artist, the institution—or will we all be responsible? The Door of the Woman is the Glass Slipper (Atlas, in transit laid to rest) (2022) assembles three sourced objects continuing Dillon’s rewriting of the Greek god Atlas as a Black woman; resurrecting the reproductive labour required of Black women to sustain neoliberal capitalism. Vessels are significant for Dillon in their moving of bodies during the slave trade, the Windrush migration, and as carriers of souls after life passes. Rhea Dillon’s solo presentation is shown simultaneously with Berggruen Arts & Culture’s inaugural exhibition Janus, which features site-specific commissions by 11 internationally acclaimed artists, as well as another special project with the Polaroid Foundation. 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 to The Kitchen’s Global Council, for the special project by Rhea Dillon. Rhea Dillon (b. 1996, London) is an artist, writer and poet based in London. Dillon’s first institutional solo exhibition, An Alterable Terrain, was recently held at Tate Britain as part of the Art Now series. To accompany this major exhibition a book of the same title was recently published by Tate Publishing. This Spring, the artist will be featured as part of the exhibition Each now, is the time, the space at Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore. Recent exhibitions include The Black Fold at Kevin Space, Vienna (2023); We looked for eyes creased with concern, but saw only veils at Sweetwater, Berlin (2023); The Sombre Majesty (or, on being the pronounced dead) at Soft Opening, London (2022); Real Corporeal at Gladstone Gallery, New York (2022); Love at Bold Tendencies, London (2022); an online screening at The Kitchen, New York (2022); Drawing a Blank curated by Ben Broome, London (2022); Janus at Soft Opening, London (2021); Pressing at Division of Labour, Salford (2021); Dishwater and No Images as part of Distant Peak at Peak Gallery, London (2020); No Man is an Island at Almine Rech, London (2020) and Uchronia et Uchromia online at External Pages (2020). Dillon was an artist in residence at Triangle - Astérides, Marseille and previously at V.O. Curations, London, which culminated in a solo exhibition, Nonbody Nonthing No Thing, and the publishing of poetry chapbook Donald Dahmer (both 2021). The artist presented Catgut – The Opera as part of Park Nights 2021 at the Serpentine Pavilion; a publication of the same title was recently published.

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Cannaregio 2386, Palazzo Diedo

Venice, NY