DOROTHY IANNONE

“We met in 1967 when I sailed to Iceland on a freighter with my husband and our friend, Emmett Williams. Dieter was waiting for us at the pier. From the moment I met him until the time I left him, my relationship with Dieter was the inspiration of my art. No longer did I paint other people. The two of us became the stars of my work, and instead of using lines from poems which I loved in my paintings, now I recorded what we had said to each other, or I wrote my own texts. No longer was I obsessed with the high love of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, now I had found my own, and in the course of recording it — not only the ecstasy but the domestic scenes too, and the difficulties — my work went into many new directions and took on many new forms. Because I was so much in love with him, Dieter was my muse, and though he had probably near foreseen this role in his life, I think he enjoyed it very much. After our separation in 1974, Dieter appears only now and again in my work, but he never leaves it completely. Sometimes circumstances call for a piece starring Dieter.”

Dorothy Iannone, from Maurizio Cattelan, Dorothy lannone. A Revolutionary Life. Flash Art International, n° 247, March-April 2006, pp. 79-81