The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego announced Thursday that it will be the sole West Coast venue to host “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.”
The epic-scale exhibit will include more than 130 art pieces from the private collection of married music and cultural artists Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys. The exhibit, which runs April 18 through Aug. 9 at the La Jolla museum, represents the first display of Dean Collection artwork in the San Diego area.
Organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 2024, “Giants” features the work of 37 Black American and diasporic artists from Africa, Europe, the United States and the Caribbean whose monumental works tower in scale, conceptual depth and technical skill.
“Ndebele Abstract,” a 2017 acrylic on canvas by Esther Mahlangu. The Dean Collection. (Courtesy of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys)
In a joint phone interview with the Union-Tribune last week, the couple spoke about “Giants,” their collection and their philosophy of “by the artists, for the artists, with the people.”
“That’s the beauty and the purity in our relationship with the artists,” Keys said. “Because we are artists, we understand the alchemy of what it takes to create something from nothing and how precious and sacred that process is. There’s a deep reverence we have that only we can understand at a different level.”
“Untitled (Model Who Embraced Natural Hairstyles at AJASS Photoshoot), circa 1970” by Kwame Brathwait. The Dean Collection, courtesy of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.
“Giants offers an exciting opportunity for MCASD to participate more meaningfully in crucial dialogues about Black joy, resistance and cultural identity in contemporary art,” said Amy Crum, Associate Curator at MCASD, in a statement. “Many of the artists in the exhibition are already in MCASD’s collection and the exhibition will give our visitors a chance to experience them in a new way.”
The exhibit, which includes a Marvin Gaye soundtrack, is divided into three parts.
The first part, “Becoming Giants,” presents the couple’s personal journeys as artists, including BMX bikes that represent Dean’s childhood and a piano used by Keys early in her career.
Dean, who grew up in the Bronx and purchased his first piece of fine art at age 18, is a Grammy-winning hip-hop producer, rapper and DJ known for his work with Jay-Z, DMX and Busta Rhymes. Keys grew up in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, where her skills as a singer-songwriter and pianist catapulted her to fame and five Grammy Awards by age 21. She has since won a dozen more Grammys and she wrote the music and lyrics for the 2024 Broadway musical “Hell’s Kitchen, which will visit San Diego Aug. 11-16.
Married music artists and art collectors Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys explore “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys,” a large-scale exhibition that will be presented April 18 through Aug. 9 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego in La Jolla. (Earl Manning)
Friends since their teenage years, the Deans married in 2010 and today own art-filled homes in many cities, including San Diego.
The second part of the exhibit, “On the Shoulders of Giants,” honors the legacy of painters, sculptors, photographers and more who built the foundation for today’s contemporary artists. It includes works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kwame Brathwaite, Esther Mahlangu and Gordon Parks.
The final part, “Giant Conversations,” is divided into two sections. The first part, “critiquing society,” includes issue-oriented art, including Henry Taylor’s paintings about homelessness and Toyin Ojih Odutola’s charcoal drawings on anti-queer discrimination in Nigeria. The second part, “Celebrating Blackness,” includes Jamel Shabazz’s playful photographs of Black New Yorkers in the 1980s or in Derrick Adams’ mixed-media panorama of playful pool floaters.
“Floater 74,” a 2010 multimedia work by Derrick Adams from The Dean Collection (Courtesy of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys)
In keeping with the show’s title, a number of large-scale works by artists like Adams, Arthur Jafa, Titus Kaphar, Meleko Mokgosi, Amy Sherald and Nina Chanel Abney are found throughout the exhibition.
For the La Jolla exhibition, one of the couple’s latest acquisitions, American artist Mickalene Thomas’ 25-foot “Le Trois Femmes Noir,” will be featured for the first time. Thomas was inspired by Édouard Manet’s 1863 painting “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” when she created her 2010 work.
“Giants” was organized by the Brooklyn Museum’s Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Kimberli Gant, who worked with the Deans to select the artwork featured in the exhibition, which Beatz said is scheduled to be on tour until around 2030. The 130 selections were chosen from the couple’s vast collection of more than 1,000 pieces.
Artists featured in “Giants” are: Nina Chanel Abney, Derrick Adams, Radcliffe Bailey, Ernie Barnes, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jarvis Boyland, Kwame Brathwaite, Jordan Casteel, Nick Cave, Hassan Hajjaj, Barkley L. Hendricks, Arthur Jafa, Titus Kaphar, Jerome Lagarrigue, Deana Lawson, Esther Mahlangu, Meleko Mokgosi, Odili Donald Odita, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Zohra Opoku, Frida Orupabo, Gordon Parks, Ebony G. Patterson, Deborah Roberts, Tschabalala Self, Jamel Shabazz, Amy Sherald, Malick Sidibé, Lorna Simpson, Sanlé Sory, Vaughn Spann, Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, Kehinde Wiley, Qualeasha Wood, Kennedy Yanko and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
One of two oil paintings of BMX riders that make up “Deliverance,” a 2022 work by Amy Sherald. The Dean Collection (Courtesy of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys)
Here are excerpts from the interview with the Deans, who are referred to here as Beatz and Keys for clarity. Their comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What led you to choose MCASD for the only West Coast exhibition space for “Giants”?
Keys: The space is absolutely stunning. It’s such a unique venue. We felt really excited about that. No matter where you’re coming from, L.A. or O.C., it’s such an amazing place to travel to. You can make it a weekend, a day trip. It’s a really special way to experience the art. We love this venue and are so excited to bring it (to MCASD).
Q: What has been the best experience for you in seeing how visitors are reacting to “Giants” as it has crossed the country?
Beatz: Eighty percent of the people who have been coming to the show, this is their first time (at an art exhibition). So we love to see that “Giants” is a great entry point for people to get into the arts in general and feel like they have a home. That’s why we play music in the show, Marvin Gaye, so when they walk in, the music is making them feel like they’re in our home and it makes them want to relax and take their time going through the exhibit. It was important to us to make people feel like they’re in a comfortable, safe space.
Keys: This is for everyone who loves art, those who are new to the space, like my love is saying, those who are experienced collectors, those who catch every exhibition they possibly can and those who maybe haven’t been inspired yet. Everyone belongs in this space … No matter who you are, you resonate with this collection. You feel something stirring inside of you and it’s really an emotional experience. We love it. It’s been a blessing to witness everybody who comes into these doors.
Married music artists and art collectors Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys explore “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys,” a large-scale exhibition that will be presented April 18 through Aug. 9 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego in La Jolla. (Earl Manning)
Q: Mr. Dean, you started collecting art at an early age. Can you tell me about your art journey?
Beatz: My love for art started in the South Bronx being around art everywhere, whether Fab 5 Freddie or seeing the art on the trains or in the hallway. Then I noticed there was another side of it. When I got successful, I got a place and I didn’t want to hang posters up so I would go down to SoHo and see the Rogath Gallery and I started learning about giclées, artists proofs and different forms of how art was being produced in different mediums. I had a mentor, David Rogath. Although I was looking at Basquiats and Warhols, I ended up getting an Ansel Adams as my first piece, a photographic landscape. My grandfather was a photographer. That started my love with just going to the galleries and learning and being curious and wanting to do different things. When I was doing business with different people in the music business, like Clive Davis, they’d come and see that I had works hanging in my house that they had in their house, as well. It was a language, as well as an appreciation and it started very young and kept going from there.
Keys: One of the things my love always says a lot is that we grew up with art on the walls and on the streets of New York, which is such a beautiful example of how art lives everywhere. But it was really when my love and I started to connect that I got introduced to art in a whole new way. In a lot of ways it’s a part of our love story. The art is a reflection of that. And so I love that he’s always been such a teacher to me, too, about opening my eyes to different artists. He does that for so many people. That’s the joy of being able to experience “Giants.” You really do have your eyes opened in so many different ways.
” .. . they were just hanging out . . . you know . . . talking about . . . ( . . . when they grow up . . .),” a multimedia work by Ebony G. Patterson. The Dean Collection. (Courtesy of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys)
Q: You’ve talked about your philosophy of collecting the works of living artists because they could use more support than those who have passed away.
Beatz: Most of the artists I collect worldwide we know personally. It’s always been something amazing. A lot of them are very young and to see them have the support, it means everything to us. That’s why we doubled down on living artists. We have non-living artists in the collection, for sure, but mostly we like to have a conversation with the artists in the collection and ask them their plans and how we can help them and be of service and create the community with them.
Q: This exhibition is titled “Giants,” in part because many of the pieces are very large in scale. But can you talk more about the meaning of the title?
Beatz: For us, we’re never really the giant collectors of our culture. It’s very rare that you see that the people from the culture have ownership of it. So we wanted to show this place something different. What made us double down on African and African American artists was because our own culture wasn’t really collecting it or knowledgeable about it. And so we wanted to change that. Although we have artists of all colors in our collection, we’re not just Black collectors. We’re art collectors that happen to be Black. We wanted to really put the importance on the culture collecting and supporting the culture and supporting each other. From the little bit of work we’ve put in, we’ve seen a big change and we continue to push every day and continue to support each other and other cultures as well.
Keys: “Giants” is a really exciting metaphor. When you bring your kids to this exhibit, the ability to take up space is a very important metaphor. When you’re walking through the galleries of the museum … you’re experiencing the Masters, the next generation of Masters. It’s really a fascinating inspiring, feeling. I think the giant aspect of it is not only represented in the physical form. It’s also represented in the spirit that the pieces uphold to remind you to be your giant self. You don’t have to hold back you, you don’t have to be small, you don’t have to fit in, you don’t have to shrink back. It’s really important on so many levels.
“Ndebele Abstract,” a 2017 acrylic on canvas by Esther Mahlangu. The Dean Collection. (Courtesy of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys)
Q: Do you each have a favorite piece in the “Giants” exhibition?
Keys: There are so many special pieces but the Mickaline (“Le Trois Femmes Noir”) is particularly important to us. This was her first piece that really garnered the level of attention that spawned what is now an unbelievable career. We resonate with that as artists: That first time, that first song, that first painting that first moment you were able to capture the hearts of people and you were able to express this beginning of your journey as an artist, it’s just completely unforgettable.
Beatz: My favorite piece is the Meleko (Botswana-born artist Meleko Mokgosi’s massive 30-panel “Bread, Butter, and Power” from 2018, which takes up an entire room in the “Giants” exhibit). He has such discipline to not break up the work. If he broke it up, he’d be better known, but he doesn’t want his work misplaced. But when people go into that room he created, it’s a world that force you to stop, sit down and take the work in.”
‘Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys’
When: Public preview, 6 to 9 p.m. April 17. Exhibit opens April 18 and runs through Aug. 9. Hours, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays
Where: Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla
Tickets: $25, general; $20, San Diego and Tijuana residents; $15, students, educators an ages 55+
Online: mcasd.org