Jeff Koons - Contemporary Art Evening Sale New York Thursday, May 16, 2013 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Sonnabend Gallery, New York

  • Exhibited

    New York, Sonnabend Gallery, Easyfun, November 13 - February 15, 2000 (light brown example exhibited)
    Oslo, Norway, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Jeff Koons: Retrospective, September 4 – December 12, 2004, then traveled to Helsinki, Finland, Helsinki City Art Museum (January 28 – April 10, 2005) (light green example exhibited)

  • Catalogue Essay

    “ My work embraces, it communicates. That’s what is threatening to people, because it is looking for a direct response; it’s looking to form a dialogue.”
    JEFF KOONS, 1992

    Emerging from a generation of artists who, in the 1980s, explored the rise and degradation of art in a media-saturated era, Jeff Koons re-imagined a euphoric playground that revolutionized the landscape of contemporary art. In a visual language born in marketing, advertising, and entertainment, Koons achieves a dialogue with the masses, from the beautiful to the perverse: basketballs floating in aquariums, Hoover vacuums in sealed Plexi displays, cereal collaged with beauty magazine images, sexual acts in extreme close-up. Pushing the limits between high and low culture, Koons’ brand of representation transforms cultural icons with campy originality.

    In Koons’ Easyfun mirrors, outlines of generic cartoon animals are transformed into flawlessly produced, reflective surfaces, inviting the viewer into a fantasy of shape, color and light. In the present lot, an expanse of exquisite spring green, within the outline of an energetic giraffe, prepares the viewer for an experience of youthful innocence and imagination. Vis-à-vis his greater body of work, a sculptural menagerie of playful images merges with sexual desire and imagination. The mirror works challenge the viewer to trust equally in the truth that transfers from the materiality of the surface and the underlying dream that emanates from the experience. Giraffe (Light Green) is an object of intense desire—a chance to reimagine oneself in a fantastical dreamworld.

31

Giraffe (Light Green)

1999
crystal glass, mirrored glass, carbon fiber, foam, colored plastic interlayer, stainless steel
81 3/4 x 59 1/4 x 1 1/2 in. (207.6 x 150.5 x 3.8 cm.)
Signed and dated "Jeff K 1999" on the reverse. This work is 1 of 4 unique versions: light brown, light green, lilac, red.

Estimate
$500,000 - 700,000 

Sold for $521,000

Contact Specialist
Zach Miner
Head of Sale
zminer@phillips.com
+1 212 940 1256

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York 16 May 2013 7pm