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Arts

Paris says 'non' to Koons sculpture

January 24, 2018

Several artists and public officials have rejected American artist Jeff Koons' offer to give Paris a sculpture in honor of the victims of the 2015 terror attacks. They decried the proposed gift as "cynical."

https://p.dw.com/p/2rQhA
Riesenskulptur Tulpenstrauß von US-Künstler Jeff Koons
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/epa/efe/A. Aldai

Two dozen artists, gallery owners and public officials published an open letter urging the city not to install the "Bouquet of Tulips" sculpture by Jeff Koons outside Paris' Museum of Modern Art and the adjacent Palais de Tokyo contemporary art center.

The signatories of the letter criticized the monument, which is being produced in Germany and depicts a 12-meter-tall (40-foot) hand holding a bunch of colorful flowers, as a "shocking" act of "product placement" designed to advertise the 63-year-old artist's works - according to the text of the document.

Arts.21: Jeff Koons – Art meets Kitsch (01.11.2008)

The open letter published in the "Liberation" daily newspaper further condemned the fact that there wasn't "a call for submissions, as is usually the case, with an opportunity given to French artists."

The signatories also highlighted the fact that the intended location for Koons' work is nowhere near the two main sites of the jihadist attacks, the Stade de France and the Bataclan concert hall.

Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons says his intentions are pureImage: picture alliance/dpa/S.Moskowitz

Koons had submitted the proposal for the sculpture, saying it was intended to serve as a universal "symbol of remembrance, optimism and recovery, intended to transcend the terrible events that took place in Paris."

A showcase for luxury art?

While the sculpture with a €3-million ($3.7 million) is intended to be financed by private donors, taxpayers are expected to foot the bill for reinforcing the infrastructure that is supposed support the bronze, stainless steel and aluminum work, which is expected to weigh about 30 tons, as well as its ongoing upkeep.

Furthermore, the financiers behind the monument will benefit from generous tax rebates – another point criticized by the signatories of the open letter.

The document highlighted Jeff Koons' contributions to art fairly, saying he was "a brilliant and inventive creator in the 1980s, (who had) since become the emblem of spectacular and speculative industrial art" whose expensive works only sell to "hyperluxe" buyers.

Signatories of the document include the filmmaker Olivier Assayas, artists Christian Boltanski and Jean-Luc Moulene, and Emilie Cariou, former culture minister Frederic Mitterrand as well as a lawmaker in President Emmanuel Macron's LREM party.

The sculpture is due to be installed in spring.

ss/ct (AFP, dpa)