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JEFF KOONS (b. 1955) AQUALUNG bronze 27 x 171/2 x 171/2 in. (68.6 x 44.5 x 44.5 cm) executed in...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,500,000.00 - 2,000,000.00 USD
JEFF KOONS (b. 1955) AQUALUNG bronze 27 x 171/2 x 171/2 in. (68.6 x 44.5 x 44.5 cm) executed in...
JEFF KOONS (b. 1955) AQUALUNG bronze 27 x 171/2 x 171/2 in. (68.6 x 44.5 x 44.5 cm) executed in 1985 this work is from an edition of three plus one artist's proof Estimate: - $1,500,000-2,000,000 PROVENANCE Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London EXHIBITED NEW YORK, International with Monument Gallery and CHICAGO, Feature Gallery, EQUILIBRIUM, 1985 (another example exhibited) SAN FRANCISCO, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and MINNEAPOLIS, Walker Art Center, JEFF KOONS, December 10, 1992-October 3, 1993 (another example exhibited) LONDON, Tate Modern, on extended loan (another example exhibited) LITERATURE F. Simpson, ed., JEFF KOONS, SAN FRANCISCO, 1992, pl. 10 (illustrated) A. Muthesius, ed., JEFF KOONS, COLOGNE, 1992, pp. 66-67; pp. 57 and 65 (illustrated; installation view) R. Rosenblum, JEFF KOONS HANDBOOK, LONDON, 1992, pp. 58-59 (illustrated) In the early 1980s, Jeff Koons resuscitated the conceptual genius of Marcel Duchamp by presenting various found objects as fine art. These first displays of readymades, which included inflatable toy rabbits and vacuum cleaners, brought the artist instant acclaim and offered incisive commentary on our culture's prevailing obsession with commodities. In 1985, Koons began to cast his carefully chosen objects in bronze, including the present work. This translation into another medium-a tactic the artist adopted for much of his work to follow-brought expanded dimensions of irony and poetry to Koons' sculptural practice. When first shown at the International with Monument Gallery in 1985, Aqualung was exhibited with several other related works. Collectively titled Equilibrium, this series included Koons' sculptures of basketballs suspended in tanks of water, and numerous bronze casts of other flotation devices, including Snorkel Vest and Lifeboat. In the broadest sense, the diverse objects in the Equilibrium series were linked by their obvious irony. The basketballs, for example, entice the viewer to handle them, dribble them and shoot hoops-but are forever floating just beyond one's reach. In a similar vein, the present work holds out the promise of underwater exploration. Yet the use of this device would entail a Houdini-like dance with death. Its leaden weight would ensure only a swift, sinking suicide. Koons himself has explained the paradox of his Aqualung as follows. "This is one of the bronzes that was there to seduce as a tool for equilibrium, and this always reminded me of the Venus of Willendorf. Very voluptuous with all of these curves just like the Venus, and if you turn it around in the back you have your emergency ripcord so, if you go for equilibrium and you panic, you can resurface. Now if somebody did go for equilibrium and they had that life vest on, and for some reason they panicked but were able to get it off and resurface, then they would see the lifeboat waiting. But if they got in thinking that they had found their salvation, they would only find that there is no salvation because the bronze lifeboat weighs over six hundred pounds and it's just going to take you right back down." (J. Koons, "Equilibrium," Jeff Koons, San Francisco, 1992, p. 67.) While Koons has described the present work in a very literal fashion, Aqualung, like most of the artist's deceptively deadpan sculpture, also possesses a surprising amount of poetry. When cast into bronze, this banal object functions as a metaphor for human aspirations towards perpetual poise and serenity. Koons seems to suggest that the search for a place of utter equilibrium is unrealistic and futile, as it ignores the ecstatic highs and depressive lows inherent to living one's life to the fullest. Writing perceptively about the Equilibrium series as a whole, Daniela Salvioni has noted that "Koons's poetics of objects recalls Jasper Johns's cast-bronze beer cans, in which an ordinary object becomes endowed with a surplus of meaning, and the surrealist tactic of juxtaposing unexpected elements, as in Meret Oppenheim's fur- covered teacup.... Survival itself, let alone upward mobility, is overtly questioned in the bronze sculptures that accompany the elegant tanks with their buoyant basketballs. Using dense, heavy, traditional sculptural material, Koons made life-sized bronze casts of a snorkel vest and a lifeboat. The contradiction between the purpose of the original objects-to keep one afloat and thus preserve life-and the massive tonnage of the actual sculptures transforms the objects into a devastating metaphor of impossibility and unsustainability. In locating the tools of survival and social advancement available to the urban underclass in the symbol of the basketballs and then revealing them to be futile by juxtaposing them with failed survival gear, Koons depicts a very bleak prospect. But the aspirations embedded in these metaphors have dignity, for the goal of balance, of plenitude, is so eloquently rendered." (D. Salvioni, "Jeff Koons's Poetics of Class," Jeff Koons, San Francisco, 1992, pp. 20-21.) READYMADE NOISE Most collectors begin by collecting works by established artists, and slowly become more adventurous, moving tentatively into contemporary art. Dakis Joannou collected the opposite way, plunging enthusiastically into the new with his purchases of works by the mid-1980s generation of Jeff Koons, Ashley Bickerton, Peter Halley and their colleagues out of their first exhibitions. New York's East Village art scene in the mid-1980s was dynamic but was also intimate. The galleries like International with Monument that presented the first Jeff Koons exhibition were in small storefronts. The artists often hung around the galleries during their exhibitions, something that would be considered uncool today. One of the most stimulating aspects of visiting the galleries was the opportunity to talk with the artists about their work and to hear their opinions about the work of other artists, young and old, who were influencing their vision. It was through conversations with Koons, Bickerton, Halley, Sherrie Levine, Haim Steinbach and other younger artists that Dakis Joannou came to collect the works of Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Edward Ruscha. It may seem hard to believe now, but the tougher and more conceptual artists who emerged in the 1960s were still underappreciated by the mainstream mid-1980s art market. The new generation felt a sense of discovery in their exploration of the early work of these artistic heroes. The course of contemporary art history had not yet made the 1960s works of Flavin, Judd, and Ruscha as essential as they are now. Jeff Koons' sculptures of new vacuum cleaners mounted on parallel fluorescent tubes demonstrated the crucial influence of Dan Flavin's Tatlin "monuments" on the artistic vision of a younger generation. Ashley Bickerton emphasized his debt to Donald Judd in his wall sculptures with their industrial metal surfaces and their visible hardware. The work of Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger referenced the early word paintings of Edward Ruscha. Dakis Joannou's purchase of key works by Flavin, Judd and Ruscha was an extension of the collecting vision that led him to the younger artists. The acquisition of these earlier works provided an art historical context for the work of the younger generation. The installation of the works of these two generations side by side in Dakis Joannou's home showed how the younger artists had mined some of the most radical artistic concepts of the '60s to advance the artistic dialogue. The combination of important historical works and major works by many of the best artists of the younger generation made the Dakis Joannou Collection one of the most important and influential collections of contemporary art. The works of these two radical artistic generations were juxtaposed in a series of influential exhibitions and publications produced by Dakis Joannou's Deste Foundation. Cultural Geometry, Artificial Nature, and Every That's Interesting Is New explored the connections between these works in their art historical and cultural context. These exhibitions helped to establish the importance of the mid-'80s generation by demonstrating their continuation of a radical and rigorous artistic tradition. This sale includes three of the most significant 1960s works from the Dakis Joannou Collection: Dan Flavin's Untitled ("monument" for V. Tatlin), 1968; Donald Judd's Untitled (bullnose progression), 1967 and Edward Ruscha's Noise, 1963. They are among the toughest and the purest of the artists' works, stripped of everything except the essential. The Flavin sculpture is one of the strongest of the Tatlin monuments. Its structure is logical and direct, without the allusions to art deco that characterize some of the other works in the series. Flavin applied Marcel Duchamp's concept of the readymade in a straightforward but extraordinarily inventive way. Everything in the work could be bought in the local hardware store and installed by anyone handy with electrical wiring. From these common household products, Flavin constructed simple structures with an inner logic whose light created complex painterly effects. Flavin created what he described as "pseudo monuments" in homage to Vladmir Tatlin (1885-1953), the great Russian revolutionary artist who in Flavin's words "dreamed of art as a science." Part of the power of these works derives from Flavin's ability to combine seemingly opposite visions into one object. The monuments are simultaneously classic and romantic, bold and ephemeral. Both Dan Flavin and Donald Judd were great talkers and famous habitués of Max's Kansas City, the legendary artists' bar. A Flavin sculpture was installed in Max's back room where Andy Warhol and his crowd carried on. The Donald Judd Untitled (bullnose progression) that is included in this sale was installed behind the bar toward the front, where Judd, Flavin, Carl Andre, Robert Smithson and other tough-minded Minimal and Conceptual artists held forth, confronting each other with their uncompromising opinions. The bullnose progression is as tough as the talk. It is one of Judd's boldest and purest pieces; there are no candy-colored glazes on this work. Its form and material are matters of fact; there is no illusion. The sculpture was acquired from the Estate of Mickey Ruskin, the owner and ringmaster of Max's Kansas City. Edward Ruscha's Noise, 1963, is a remarkable work that is both very much part of its time and way ahead of its time. It fuses Pop Art and Minimalism with the birth of Conceptualism. It is a link between the philosophical painting of Jasper Johns' Flag on Orange Field and the word pieces of Joseph Kosuth and Bruce Nauman. It also enters into a dialogue with Yves Klein's monochromes and his aesthetic embrace of the void. On one level, the painting is pure Pop with its Sunoco gas station colors and bold letters lifted from commercial signage. On a deeper level, it is a conceptual monochrome, juxtaposing a reference to an Yves Klein blue with a conceptual representation of noise. In Edward Ruscha's case it is not effete white noise, but brash American yellow noise. Dakis Joannou acquired the painting from the private collection of Leo Castelli. Now that the works of Jeff Koons and other artists of the mid-1980s generation have themselves entered into art history, the historicizing presence of the radical 1960s works is no longer necessary in Dakis Joannou's collection. These works are being sold as the collection's focus is changing to emphasize the connections between the '80s and '90s generations and today's emerging artists. Jeffrey Deitch
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