Things that go pop: Jeff Koons’s seesaw market
He’s the toast of Europe ’s
museums, but his prices go up and down
By Georgina Adam. From Art
Basel
Published online: 15 June 2012
One American artist seems to be everywhere this year. At
the Fondation Beyeler here in Basel New York ’s
Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum
of Contemporary Art , Los Angeles
Works by Koons are for sale at Art Basel and in the
saleroom. Christie’s is selling a Baroque Egg with Bow (Blue/Turquoise),
1994-2008, from the “Celebration” series, in its auction in London
At Art Basel, Koons’s principal dealer, Gagosian Gallery
(2.0/B15), is showing a large painting: Auto, 2001. L&M Arts (2.0/B12) has
a mirror piece, Inflatable Yellow Flower, 2011, priced at $800,000. Richard
Gray Gallery (2.0/E4) is offering a Bikini (Jungle) piece, 2001-06, for
$950,000, while the print publisher Carolina Nitsch (2.1/Q8) sold her remaining
copies of a crystal archive print, Untitled (Girl with dolphin and monkey),
2006, priced at $60,000 (edition of 25).
“There is tremendous demand for Koons’s works at collector
and museum level,” says Larry Gagosian, who held his first solo show for Koons
in 2001 and describes him as “a once-in-a-generation, transformative artist”.
He is also a divisive one. Some think he is one of the key
artists of our time, for the technical perfection of his work, made by master
craftsmen, and his branded, post-pop melding of high art with kitsch. Others
can be damning. The critic Robert Hughes once wrote: “[Koons] has the slimy
assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried
Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida
Among his many admirers are heavyweight collectors. The
owner of Christie’s, François Pinault, devotes a room in his Venice Ukraine ’s
Victor Pinchuk, whose holdings include a magenta and gold version of Hanging
Heart, for which he paid $23.6m at Sotheby’s New York London
But Koons’s market was hit after the 2008/09 financial
crisis. In 2010, a blue Balloon Flower made just $16.9m at Christie’s New York
“Koons was the poster-boy of the art boom in the early 21st
century,” says the Christie’s specialist Francis Outred. “His prices went up a
lot because there was speculation, and because he is extremely perfectionist.
The works took a long time to make, so sometimes they were only delivered after
the financial crisis, and some buyers were caught short.”
This was the case with the previous owner of Baroque Egg
with Bow: by the time it was delivered, the buyer’s circumstances had changed,
and it was quickly sold on to the present vendor. Prices for these eggs have
also softened. Previous examples sold for $5.4m in 2009 and $6.2m in 2011;
Christie’s estimate for its example, translated into dollars, is $3.9m to
$5.4m.
Koons works in series: his first was “Inflatables” in 1979,
and he has since made another 16, including the highly regarded “Equilibrium”
in the 1980s, with basketballs floating in tanks, and “Banality” in 1988,
including the famous Michael Jackson and Bubbles. “Koons reformulated and
changed sculpture and reached his artistic pinnacle with ‘Equilibrium’ and ‘Banality’,”
says Outred, who believes that examples of Koons’s best known works, such as
Michael Jackson and Bubbles, Balloon Dog, 1994-2000, and Rabbit, 1986, would
set new records if they came to market today.
The large-scale and decorative “Celebration” series, which
includes hearts, balloon dogs and flowers, fetches the highest prices, but
Rachel Lehmann, the co-founder of Lehmann Maupin Gallery (2.1/J9), who is also
a collector of Koons’s work, says: “It is important to distinguish between
works in the post-‘Celebration’ series. Some of them have indeed lost value;
the market is far more stable for earlier pieces.” She says that, while
everyone focuses on the post-“Celebration” series, there is material that is
much less well known. She cites the polychrome wood Cherubs, 1991, which sold
at Christie’s New York
Koons’s paintings, which are generally linked to his
sculptures, are less popular with collectors, and this is reflected in their
prices. The record sum—$5.1m for Loopy, 1999—was set at Christie’s London
Koons, speaking at the Beyeler on Thursday, told The Art
Newspaper that he ignores the market and puts his paintings on the same level
as his sculptures. “I’m very proud of them,” he said. “I put energy into them.”
Asked whether he paints them himself, he gave a very Koonsian answer. “I
articulate the fingertips of the different people I work with,” he said.
Correction: the version of this article that appeared in
print incorrectly implied that Christie's was the vendor of Baroque Egg with
Bow (Blue/Turquoise). The work is being sold at the auction house on behalf of
its owner on 27 June.
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