Dec 6, 2025 – Feb 22, 2026
Danae Io
Dial IV, 2025
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Dial IV, 2025
Bookbinding board, stainless steel, 2 phone cards with a drawing of James Skenes' Alamana Bridge, produced by the Greek National Historical Museum and OTE (Hellenic Telecommunications Organization) in 2003; aluminum
6 × 34.7 × 9 cm
Unique, with certificatePhoto: Wyatt Niehaus.
€ 1,100
OrderDanae Io’s Jahresgabe Dial IV (2025) consists of two identical wall sculptures facing each other in a corner of the room. They relate to Io’s video work Recording Angel (2025), in which a car drives through present-day Thebes while a radio plays a program about the British explorer and draughtsman James H. Skene. Skene’s 19th-century drawings—shaped by a saccharine romanticism and the Western idealization of ancient Greece—are still displayed in national museums today to illustrate the shaping of the modern Greek state.
In Dial IV, the temporal overlays present in the video find their spatial counterpart. By combining mirrors with Greek telephone cards featuring a drawing by Skene, Io creates two optical devices that not only respond to one another but also incorporate the viewer: as soon as one approaches, the mirrors embedded in the objects make one aware of one’s own gaze, turning the viewer into part of the image. Dial IV thus reveals itself as a relational constellation, dependent on the conditions of its surroundings—history, imagination, and the present interlock without distinction. In the intertwining of representation and reflection, the work simultaneously offers a critical consideration of how images are produced, circulated, and mobilized depending on political interests: on the occasion of the 200-year anniversary of the Greek nation state, there are plans to build, in the municipality of Lamia, a bridge based on Skene’s drawing—the same one depicted on the telephone card.