Latest news with #SwizzBeatz
South China Morning Post
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
How celebrity collectors are shaking up the art world, from Swizz Beatz and his wife Alicia Keys, to Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-Z and Madonna
In the late 90s, when rapper and record producer Kasseem Dean, aka Swizz Beatz, was still a teenager, he tried to buy an artwork from a gallery. 'But they didn't take him seriously,' says Kimberli Gant, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. 'He wasn't a typical collector – he was this young man who they didn't really know.' But that didn't deter Dean. He kept attending openings and museum shows, demonstrating a serious interest to gallerists who eventually ushered him into their inner circle. His first major acquisition was a photograph by legendary American artist Ansel Adams. Fast-forward to the present, and Dean – alongside his wife, Grammy Award-winning Alicia Keys – are among the most prominent celebrity collectors in the US. In 2019, the power couple made it onto the esteemed art publication ARTnews' Top 200 Collectors list. Alicia Keys at the 'Giants' exhibition, which featured about 100 works and attracted more than 125,000 visitors. Advertisement Last year, the Brooklyn Museum staged 'Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys', a sprawling exhibition of about 100 artworks, which is travelling to the Minneapolis Institute of Art this month. The show features just a fraction of their expansive collection. The Deans are among a growing number of celebrities who are gravitating towards collecting contemporary art. Stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-Z, Madonna, Pharrell Williams and Steve Martin are all known to share a similar passion for collecting. 'They have homes, boats, exotic cars, staff, clothing and jewellery … once they have everything, they often add the art,' says New York-based art adviser Maria Brito, who has worked with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Diddy and celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson Leonardo DiCaprio is another avid art collector. He's pictured here with Amazonian artists Nixiwaka Yawanawá, and Isku Kua Yawanawá at the Re:wild's 'Art of Nature Basel' event in Miami, in 2023. Celebrity collecting isn't a new phenomenon but what has changed is that it's now becoming much more visible. Stars are getting involved in exhibitions, posting more on social media and making appearances at major art fairs. 'What is happening is that the worlds are merging,' says Gant. 'I think we're going to see more exhibitions like 'Giants', as celebrities who are serious collectors decide to put their collections out there.' Museums and other art world institutions have become increasingly interested in collaborating with celebrities to attract a broader audience. The 'Giants' show pulled in more than 125,000 visitors, including people who travelled from California, Georgia and Maryland. Gant explains that the exhibition injected new life into the museum, offering a non-traditional experience: 'The art world has cultivated an expectation of what museum shows should look or feel like, with purely white walls and silence, but this was different.' The 'Giants' exhibits included Arthur Jafa's sculpture made of monster truck tyres shrouded in iron chains evoking a giant gong. Photo: Handout The exhibition featured several mini living room vignettes with sofas where visitors could lounge and browse through catalogues of artists' work. Swizz Beatz also created a soundtrack for the show, which was playing in the background: 'So there was a lot of Marvin Gaye and smooth music, which creates a beautiful energy when you walk through … and people could get the idea of what it could be like to live with art in their own home,' says Gant.
CBS News
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
"Giants" collection at MIA showcases nearly 100 pieces by Black artists
Art pieces owned by Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys are now on display at "Giants," a new exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The exhibit features nearly 100 pieces by Black artists and traveled from Brooklyn and Atlanta to its temporary home in Minneapolis. Beatz and Keys are major art collectors, who have spent a better part of a decade building the collection from artists from around the world. Pieces include a diptych by artist Amy Sherald, who liked capture the everyday movements and life of Black people "doing stuff," explained Casey Riley, Chair of Global Contemporary Art at MIA. Another piece is a panoramic piece by Meleko Mokgosi, an artist of Botswanan descent who wanted to capture the evolution of democracy in Botswana and the weight of colonialism, and how it continues to "reverberate and shape society," Riley said. "I really hope that as visitors walk through, their curiosity is sparked and they want to look closer and ask questions about what's happening in each of these vignettes," said Riley. The exhibit also features an assemblage of paintings by artist Barkley Hendricks, who would travel to Jamaica with his wife over the course of many years. The paintings capture "the beauty of the landscape," Riley said. The collection is "really about excellence," Riley said. "And at a time where we're really yearning for connection and joy and maybe something to uplift our spirits, seeing the extraordinary artistic output that is exhibited in this show is really important for people."
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Giants' brings the provocative, exciting collection of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beats to the Mia
A pair of drum machines, turntables, Alicia Keys' Yamaha CP-70 piano stenciled with 'Love' and 'Freedom,' Swizz Beats' eight-channel mixer, and a trio of BMX bikes. These objects greet visitors before they step into the Minneapolis Institute of Art's latest exhibit, 'Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.' Put together by Kimberli Grant, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, 'Giants' glimpses into the collection of the New York musicians. While the rest of the exhibit isn't as concerned with objects as the foyer, it sets a tone. It's a collection with an eye on both history and modernity. Those opening pieces, coupled with a soundtrack selected by Swizz Beats playing throughout the galleries, offer an inescapable sense that history is alive and taking place in plain sight. (The foyer also contains towering portraits of the collectors by Kehinde Wiley, an artist the Mia recently declined to exhibit due to allegations of sexual assault.) The nearly 100 pieces, many of which are appropriately giant, predominantly feature Black diasporic artists, including familiar names like Jean-Michel Basquiat and one-time St. Paul resident Gordon Parks, as well as a glittering soundsuit by Nick Cave, massive paintings of BMX bikers in Baltimore by Michelle Obama portraitist Amy Sherald, a multi-media collage by Ebony G. Patterson, and photographs by Jamel Shabazz. The music, the pervasive reminders that this is a private collection, and the thoughtful themeing of rooms — 'Becoming Giants,' 'Giant Presence,' 'Giant Conversation,' and 'On the Shoulders of Giants' — provide encouragement to connect the frequently bright and large-scale pieces to one another and to broader histories beyond the museum's walls. Amid Titus Kaphar's powerful triptychs or the awe-inducing room of paintings on gender and colonialism by Botswanan artist Meleko Mokgosi, 'Giants' amplifies the political themes found in individual pieces. Together, they provoke discussion on how collecting can be an investigation into which voices are centered and heard. (It's something Kaphar's "A Puzzled Revolution," found in the exhibit's second room, probes itself.) The statements on race and other issues are timely, arriving in Minneapolis just before the five-year anniversary of the Minneapolis Police killing of George Floyd. The presentation of bold artists assembled this way feels prescient in a moment when diversity initiatives are being vilified and extinguished, attempted book bans continue, and the government threatens to withhold funding from arts organizations that center artists of color, women, or queer voices. Even the exhibition's sponsorship — in part, the Center for Racial and Health Equity at Blue Cross Blue Shield, hosted in the Target Special Exhibitions Gallery — seems to invite these conversations as headlines frequently highlight the inequities of the healthcare system and Target retreats from diversity initiatives. It's a stark juxtaposition with a piece like Hank Willis Thomas' "You Shouldn't Be the Prisoner of Your Own Ideas (LeWitt)," a quilt made from the cloth of decommissioned prison uniforms. 'Giants,' full of exciting individual pieces thoughtfully assembled, will reward repeat visits for all it has to say, spoken and unspoken.
Axios
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Philadelphia's Super Bowl anthems, according to Spotify
Sunday night was a movie, and Philly set the soundtrack. State of play: Fans celebrated their Super Bowl win with anthems like: " Fly, Eagles Fly" by Curtis Jr., which jumped +13,950% in hourly streams on Spotify Sunday between 9pm and 12am, compared to the same period the week prior, according to the music service. " Millidelphia (feat. Swizz Beatz)" by Meek Mill (+1,095%) " Gonna Fly Now - Theme From "Rocky" by Bill Conti (+340%) Flashback: The Eagles' 2018 Super Bowl parade playlist included classics like " Motownphilly" and " Cupid Shuffle," plus hits of the time like " Bodak Yellow" and " Mi Gente." Tell us: What do you want to hear blasting at Friday's parade? Email Axios Philly with your suggestions. More from Axios: Eagles Super Bowl parade: When, where and what to expect
