Jeff Koons Has Finally Unveiled His Controversial Gift to Paris, and the French Public Is Not Entirely Thrilled

Jeff Koons’s gift to the city of
Paris, an homage to the victims of the November 2015 terror attacks
that left 131 victims dead, has finally been
unveiled.

While the city’s mayor, Anne
Hidalgo, expressed hope that the colorful, monumental sculpture of
a hand holding a bouquet of tulips would be accepted without
controversy, some French citizens, including many in the art world,
remain unhappy about the project, which has been a source of
consternation since it was first announced in 2016.

The 41 foot bronze, stainless
steel, and aluminum work was revealed on Friday, October 4, in the
gardens of the Champs-Elysées, between the Petit Palais museum and
the Place de la Concorde, not far from the US
Embassy. At the
inauguration, Koons reiterated that the sculpture was
“a symbol of remembrance,
optimism, and healing,” adding that it was inspired by a 1958
lithograph by Pablo Picasso titled Bouquet of Peace.

But not everyone is happy about
the gift, which has been controversial from the
beginning. One concern was
the originally suggested location, just outside the Palais de
Tokyo: the supports that would have been necessary to prop up the
67-ton work would have effectively made the
museum’s basement
galleries useless. A resolution was reached when an alternate location was
found.

Many also took issue with the
fact that Koons donated only the idea for the work, but left its
execution and installation— estimated at the time to cost €3.5
million—to the French. 

Ultimately, the production company behind the
work, Noirmontartproduction,
worked with Le Fonds pour Paris, the city’s foundation, to
raise enough private money for the execution and installation.
Among the donors to the project are the billionaire art collectors Kenneth C. Griffin
and Bernard Arnault, along with Evercore investment firm CEO Ralph Schlosstein.
(Schlosstein is the husband of Jane Hartley, the US ambassador
to France who commissioned the work from
Koons.) Additionally,
donations came in from Leon and Debra Black, Leonard Lauder, and
others.

When the project ran $1 million
over budget, Koons stepped in to bear the additional costs alone.
The artist has also promised to give 80 percent of any royalties he
receives from commercial products depicting the sculpture to the
families of the victims. The remaining 20 percent will fund the
maintenance of the work.

Yet one of the victims’ groups,
Life For Paris, remains dissatisfied. The association told the
French publication Les
Jours that they were
“shocked” to learn that the work would be financed by tax-free
donations, and therefore pose a burden to taxpayers.

Others have complained on separate grounds. Among them is a
group of 24 prominent French
artists, museum directors, and culture workers who wrote an open
letter in January calling the project “opportunistic and even
cynical.”

The initiator of the letter, the
gallerist Stéphane Corréard, reiterated his views in a recent
interview in the French publication Le
Point. “In the world
of contemporary art, very few people approve of the Koons
operation,” he said. “A survey conducted by Le Quotidien de
l’Art of readers, gallery owners, and collectors was
poignant: 98 percent
disapproved of the project. We have not even heard the curators of
the last two Jeff Koons exhibitions in France take his side, and
this itself is revealing.”

Hidalgo, who accepted the
project on behalf of France, remains supportive. After its
unveiling, she tweeted that the work was a symbol of liberty and friendship. The role of
art, she wrote, is “to amaze, to move, but also to shake[things] up
and make people think.”

Other Twitter users have not been as
magnanimous. “Jeff Koons is a
bit like the Ikea of modern art,” one wrote. “You can find it
everywhere, it’s ugly, not very durable, and yet everyone acts as
if it were essential.”

The post Jeff Koons Has Finally Unveiled His Controversial
Gift to Paris, and the French Public Is Not Entirely Thrilled
appeared first on artnet News.