AO Art Observed™

Photomontage of Lobster, Jeff Koons, set in “Salon de Mars” at Versailles via MSNBC

In September, one of the worlds highest-paid living artist, Jeff Koons, will invade the Palace of Versaille and (controversially) install up some of his best-known works around the chateau and gardens. The 52-year-old artist will exhibit 12 to 15 of his works, including Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold), which sold in 2007 for $23.7 million, his highly recognizable Balloon Dog (Magenta), and his 1986 chrome steel Rabbit. Versaille’s President Jean-Jacques Aillagon, who previously managed the Palazzo Grassi, Pinault’s contemporary-art museum in Venice, has announced that the show will go from September 10 until December 14.

Koons Goes to Versailles [Artinfo]
Koons brings kitsch to Versailles [Guardian]
Jeff Koons to Exhibit at Palace of Versailles Next September [Bloomberg]

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Jeff Koons at the Met via Artfagcity

NYMag explores how the art of Jeff Koons somehow stands above the other “razzmatazz” [NYMag]
Profile of collector Eli Broad and his “oversize ego and unstoppable ambition” [Metropolis]
The art services market grows in lockstep with art prices [NYTimes]
Edvard Munch prices seem to be rising in direct correlation to recent art thefts of his work [The Art Newspaper]
Bloomberg posits that Banksy’s possible middle class private school background may affect his notoriety [Bloomberg]

Naked Portrait with Reflection, Lucian Freud (1980) via Artinfo

Christie’s held its Postwar and Contemporary Evening sale on Monday, June 30th, setting new records and selling 83% of the lots. The four largest sales came from Jeff Koons, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Andy Warhol. Other artists who were featured in the finely curated sale were Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter, and Gilbert and George just to name a few. Out of the 48 lots that sold, 30 of them made over $1 million, and the total sale raised $172 million. This is Christie’s best result for a post-war and contemporary art sale in Europe.
Bacon Self-Portraits Fetch $34.5 Million at London Art Auction [Bloomberg]
Koons sculpture highlights record-breaking art sale [APF]
Koons record as London art sales draw to close [Reuters]
Christie’s London Bests Own Contemporary Record [Artinfo]
Record price for Koons sculpture [BBC]
Christie’s Post War and Contemporary Art Sale [Christie's]
Bacon Triptych Sells for $34.4 Million in London [NYTimes]
Dead Artists Breathe Life Into Auctions [Wall Street Journal]
Koons’s ‘Balloon Flower’ sits in St. James Square before sale at Christie’s June 30th [Art Observed]

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Chant 2, Bridget Riley (1967) via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s is holding its Contemporary Art Evening Auction on Tuesday, July 1st at its New Bond St. location in London. The sale’s highlights include works from Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Andy Warhol and a number of other notable contemporary artists. The complete body of works for this sale will be on view at Sotheby’s New Bond St. galleries Monday, June 30 from 9am-7pm and Tuesday, July 1 from 9am-12noon.

Bridget Riley’s piece, Chant 2, a unique color painting which will be in the sale, was part of a show which won the artist the esteemed International Prize for Painting at the 34th Venice Biennale in 1968 .

Estimate: $4,000,000 - $6,000,000 (Pictured above)

London Contemporary Art Evening Auction [Sotheby's]

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Balloon Flower (Magenta), Jeff Koons via flickr W10

Jeff Koons’ magenta colored Balloon Flower sits in St. James Square waiting to be sold on Monday, June 30th, at Christie’s London. From the series Celebration, the enormous flower was previously owned by the Rachofsky Collection in Texas. It has been deemed the highlight of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Sale, and is estimated to fetch $23.5 million.

Koons Dallas ‘Flower’ may fetch $23.5 Million at Christie’s London June 30th [artobserved]
Jeff Koons Sculpture May Fetch 12 Million Pounds at Christie’s [Bloomberg]
Win One, Lose One for Dallas Museum [NYTimes]

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Le bassin aux nympheas by Monet via BBC News

Rarely seen Monet is up for auction at Christie’s [BBC]
Berlin as a new artistic and cultural capital of Europe? [NYTimes]
Jeff Koons joins Gucci jury for Venice film festival in September [Variety]
The ‘Artek Pavilion,’ sold as an art piece by Sotheby’s, can be used as display space for collectors[NYSun]
“Louise Bourgeois: the Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine” showing at New York’s Film Forum [Film Forum]
16 Young British Artists reunite in London for “Freeze 20”[ArtInfo]

Dakis Joannou’s Jeff Koons-designed yacht ‘Guilty’ via Artforum

Art luminaries gather on collector Dakis Joannou’s Jeff Koons-designed yacht in Greece [artforum]
Study: number of US artists tripled since 70’s to 2 million with $34,800 average income [artinfo]
A profile of contemporary German collector Falckenberg and his 2,000 works [Bloomberg]
Early Hirst painting disgarded to thrift shop by mistake [The Independent]
The NYTimes reviews Lichtenstein at Gagosian uptown NY [NYTimes]
New Museum announces 1st US Elizabeth Peyton survey show [New Museum]
Market uncertainty, Christie’s competition cited in 12% quarterly profit drop for Sotheby’s [the Art Newspaper]

Image via Telegraph UK

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago presents a collection of retrospective work of the influential contemporary artist Jeff Koons, through September 21st.  This is his first major U.S. exhibit in 15 years which contains 60 paintings and sculptures of his most iconic work, including many of his recent works.

Jeff Koons: First Major US Museum Survey in Fifteen Years at Chicago’s MCA [Art Daily]
Jeff Koons exhibit opens at Museum of Contemporary Art [Chicago Tribune]
Jeff Koons opens first major US exhibit after 15 years [International Herald Tribune]
A Jeff Koons Retrospective [The New Yorker] (more…)

Rob Pruitt, Viagra Falls (2008) via Tony Shafrazi Gallery

“Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?” runs from May 9 – July 12 at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York. Gavin Brown and Swiss artist Urs Fischer organized this show, which has been garnering a strong amount of publicity. Be sure to click on Art Observed’s exclusive covering of the opening. The exhibition celebrates juxtapositions throughout art and pays homage to Shafrazi’s legendary defacing of Picasso in the seventies by irreverent displays of art work out of context with traditional presentation. Different mediums, spaces, and uses of objects are shown. There are works from a wide range of artists, including,  Jeff Koons, Francis Bacon, Keith Haring, Cindy Sherman, to Rirkrit Tiravanija.

Tony Shafrazi Gallery
When Artworks Collide [NY Times]
Tony Shafrazi Defaces ‘Guernica’ Again [NY Magazine]
Picks: Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?” [ArtForum]
Tony Shafrazi Defaces ‘Guernica’ Again [NYMag]
AO on site: Fischer & Brown at Tony Shafrazi Gallery [ArtObserved]

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Balloon Flower (Magenta) via jeffkoons

A Jeff Koons sculpture, Balloon Flower (Magenta), which has been in the Dallas collection of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky for seven years, is set to be auctioned at Christie’s London June 30 and may fetch $23.5 million. The sculpture, originally purchased for $1 Million, has gained value as Koons has emerged as one of the world’s most influential contemporary pop artists. Balloon Flower is from the same “Celebration” series as the sculptures which are currently on view on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Koons Prices Balloon, ‘Flower’ Will Be Sold [NYTimes]
Jeff Koons: Iconoclast [Sundance]
Koons Sculpture to Fetch Millions[Bloomberg]
Christie’s Announces Sale of Koons [Art Daily]
Rachofsky’s Sell Koons to Focus Collection [Dallas News]
Koons Balloon Soars to Auction [ArtInfo]

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Stephanie Seymour (wife of Art Collector and Art in America owner Peter Brant) in Jeff Koons
for Gap; via Nylon

The Gap, working in close partnership with the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Art Production Fund, recently released a collection of 13 t-shirts designed by contemporary artists who have all been past Whitney Biennial participants. Jeff Koons, Chuck Close, Babara Kruger, Ashley Bickerton, Kiki Smith, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Marilyn Minter, Cai Guo-Qiang, Kenny Scharf, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Hanna Liden, and Sarah Sze are all participating.

Gap Partners with the Whitney to Launch Artist Edition T’s [Gap]
Gap Artist Edition T Shirts [LA Times]
Turning Shirts Into an Artforum [USA Today] (more…)

Claude Monet, Le Pont du Chemin de fer a Argenteuil, (1873) via Bloomberg

A series of spring auctions in New York have proven to be successful despite some recent speculation about the market’s weakness due to setbacks in the financial and real estate markets. Bloomberg reported that Sotheby’s lost half of its value in the past year, but the company, at their Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on May 7^th, sold a total of $235.3 million in their 52-lot auction, hovering right in the middle of their anticipated $203.9 million to $280.1 million range.

In the 58-lot auction at Christie’s on the previous evening, the sales totaled $277.3 million, just under their $287 million to $405 million estimate for the evening’s sales. This was the first time in four years that Christie’s sold beneath the total estimate. The Christie’s auction was dominated by European buyers, while, at Sotheby’s, Americans bought 67 percent of the sales. More details of each each auction after the jump.

Art: Auction Jitters [WSJ]
Putting a Price on Mao’s Head [WSJ]
Record Leger, Munch Sales Lead Slim Sotheby’s Auction [Bloomberg]
Sotheby’s Posts Loss on Lower Sales, Higher Salaries [Bloomberg]
Collectors Shrug Off Market Woes [Financial Times]
Americans Heaviest Bidders [NY Times]
Monet and Rodin Set Price Records at Christie’s [NY Times]
Auction houses put faith in $1.8bn art sales [Financial Times]
Art market shows strength at Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modern Art [Herald Tribune]
Record Monet Fails to Stem Dip in Christie’s Impressionist Sale [Bloomberg]
Sotheby’s Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art Sets Record for Fernand Leger [Art Daily]
Monet and Rodin Set Price Records at Christie’s [NY Times]

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iGoogle Themes by Jeff Koons via High Snobiety

Google recently launched a new customization feature which allows users to choose the background of their search toolbars. They’ve recruited 68 of today’s influential creatives in music and fashion as well as artists such as Shepard Fairey and Jeff Koons.

Glossary of iGoogle Artist Themes [Google]
Google Gets Dressed [Nylon Magazine]
Artist themes for Google [Boing Boing]

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Gagosian Gallery via the New York Times

On artists trading up galleries [NY Times]
Will the Whitney branch out overseas? [NY Mag]
The “masterpiece effect:” 40% of old master works at Christie’s NY fail to sell [Financial Times]
Multimillion dollar art fabricators to the likes of Jeff Koons [NY Times]
Gallerist, former Deitch Projects director James Fuentes’s gallery/home [Time Out NY]
What happens to ‘buy-ins:’ the standard 20-30% of lots that don’t sell at auction [WSJ]

The Art Bunker, Berlin via Wall Street Journal

8 Story Berlin bunker retrofitted for artwork [Wall Street Journal]
Fingerprints validating Jackson Pollock painting fraudulent [NY Post]
Art Cologne had 55K visitors, down from 70K in 2006 [Bloomberg]
NYC Museum staff ‘hidden treasures’ picks [New York Times]
Hirst and Koons sanctioned $30 art tshirts for sale [Gawker]
That whole Yale thing: abortion-art-hoax-controversy here, here, here, and here. [NYTimes, Yale Daily News, LATimes, Wall Street Journal]

Jeff Koons balloon dog via the NY Times

From the Aril 22nd until almost November, the Met will display a significant exhibition of major works by Jeff Koons entitled “Jeff Koons on the Roof.” The roof provides a dramatic view of Central Park and Manhattan.

“A Panoramic Backdrop for Meaning and Mischief” [NY Times]
“Jeff Koons invades the MET!” [BlackBook media]
“Up on the Roof with Jeff Koons: Come for the Sculptures, Stay for the Specialty Drinks!” [Media Bistro]
“No puppy love for Jeff Koons” [NY Sun]
“Divine love and candied sentiment” [Financial Times]

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Jeff Koon’s “Rabbit” 1/3 (1986) via Artinfo.com

Famed art dealer Ileana Sonnabend’s art collection was sold in two private transactions by her children this past week. Valued at nearly $1 billion, Sonnabend’s collection included works by artists such as Rauschenberg, Warhol, Koons, Johns, Lichtenstein and Twombly.

A Colossal Private Sale by the Heirs of a Dealer[The New York Times]
Sonnabend’s Children Part with $600 Million Worth of Art to Pay Off Estate Taxes[Art Forum]
Sonnabend’s Children Sell Most of $900 Million Collection[Bloomberg News]
Sonnabend Works Sold in Private Auction [Art Info]

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Ilona Staller and artist Jeff Koons via Reuters

The Italian porn star Ilona Staller recently sued her ex-husband Jeff Koons in a claim claims $2.3 million (£1.15 million) due on child support. Ilona Staller aka “La Cicciolina” (which means “the little fleshy one” according to Wikipedia) claimed in New York State Court that her ex-husband has to date only paid $310,600 in child support for their son, Ludwig, since they divorced in 1998. Jeff Koons is known as one of the highest-paid living artists.

Artist Jeff Koons beeing sued [New York Magazine]
Koons sued by Porn Star Ex-Wife [Bloomberg]
Battle between Koons and his ex-wife the italian porn-star [New York Sun]

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Alec Wildenstein via Telegraph

Obituary for Alec Wildenstein, of major art world dynasty[Independent UK]
Update: D’Offay wants ‘iconic’ gallery to house £125 million gift [The Scotsman via ArtForum]
In Brooklyn, DUMBO’s most controlling real estate family keeps 1,000 artists and arts organization in the neighborhood [The New York Times]
De Kooning sells for $5 million at the European Fine Art Fair [Bloomberg]
Bill Ruprecht continues to navigate Sotheby’s through uncertain times [Economist]
Future of Metropolitan and Guggenheim is controlled by same exec search firm [NYSun]
‘Gallery condos’ as artist and dealer space for sale in Chelsea [ChelseaNow]
Jeff Koons studio visit is auctioned off, for charity [c-monster], [charitybuzz]

Los Angeles County Museum Via Bloomberg

Review: Eli Broad gives $50mm, loans his foundation’s and personal collections to LACMA [Bloomberg]
Jeff Koons chats with Katy Siegel at 92nd Street Y Exhibition [Art Fag City]
Julian Schnabel claims he will “bring peace to Israel” in June [New York Mag]
Ad agency accuses Tracey Emin of plagiarizing Antony Gromley’s E.ON 2007 campaign [Art Fag City]
New Award for Top Swiss Contemporary Art, courtesy of Julius Bär Foundation [Swiss Info]
ARCO8, 27th Madrid International Contemporary Art Fair, opens today [Art Daily]