ANIMAL » JEFF KOONS

Perfect Love Lotion by Jeff Koons

Marina Galperina — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:55:33 +0000

Allegedly, after Jeff Koons’ ex-wife Ilona Staller (a.k.a. porn princes/hardcore art collaborator/siren/topless politician la Ciccolina) kidnapped their son, he founded the Koons Family Institute on International Law and Policy. Now buy this 2011 Edition of Kiehl’s moisturizer for charity featuring Koons’ “balloon flowers” aka “a symbol for perfect love.” Since it’s for a kids’ charity, maybe Christie’s catalog writers got it wrong describing it as “overtly erotic?”

According to Christie’s, it’s got petals that “form an orifice-like fulcrum” and “the sculpture’s curving, swollen forms suggest a sexually aroused and inviting body.” So… Since Jeff Koons isn’t like to begift a children’s charity with a shiny swollen member, looks like we’ve got a male Georgia O’Keeffe “that’s not labia”-style misunderstanding.

Jeff Koons Must Die!!! The Arcade Videogame

Marina Galperina — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:00:54 +0000

Multi-media artist Hunter Jonakin new piece Jeff Koons Must Die!!! is a brilliant first-person shooter in a vintage arcade game terminal. For quarter, you can rampage through a Jeff Koons retrospective and blow up his art with a rocket-launcher.

Blast away his big ol’ “signature” balloon animals into a fiery oblivion! Blow a burning hole through his elf-made collages! Destroy Koons porn cheese!

Then Jeff Koons comes out and “chastises the viewer for annihilating his art” and sends museum guards to kill you. The best part:

If the player survives this round then he or she is afforded the ability to enter a room where waves of curators, lawyers, assistants, and guards spawn until the player is dead. In the end, the game is unwinnable, and acts as a comment on the fine art studio system, museum culture, art and commerce, hierarchical power structures, and the destructive tendencies of gallery goers, to name a few.

Womp womp. C’est la vie, artistes.

Jeff Koons Gives Up

Marina Galperina — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:00:24 +0000

Jeff Koons has officially given up trying to sue San Francisco’s Park Life gallery and Toronto’s balloon-dogged bookend makers imm Living for copyright infringement. Spoilsport! The pro bono lawyer who tore Koons a new one had lots of “expert witnesses,” honk honk. So, no courtroom circus for us and it’s all legit, as long as Park Life doesn’t use Koons’ name when marketing the bookends – not that it ever did or ever has to now. The item is suddenly very, very popular.

Jeff Koons Makes Sad Clowns Sadder

Marina Galperina — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:30:56 +0000

Since Jeff Koons went all cease and desist on a shop for selling balloon-shaped bookends, he got zinged pretty bad. Now, one of the pissed clowns – perhaps, the real victims in this plagiarism/appropriation fracas – points out that in 1966, balloon master Jimmy Davis copyrighted his book One Balloon Zoo with the exact balloon Jeff Koons copied to make his sculpture in 1995.

Jeff Koons’s Birthday Is Ruined

Marina Galperina — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:39:42 +0000

Since Jeff Koons sent a cease and desist letter to SF’s Park Life gallery for selling bookends shaped like the balloon dogs which he obviously invented, the gallery lawyered up and swung back with legal zingers galore in a federal complaint starting with “As virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain.”

The document goes on like a poison pen letter to call out Koons (who turns 56 today) for biting, posing, bullying and being delusional. SLAM!

Jeff Koons Sues Over Balloon Animal Bookends

Marina Galperina — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:40:00 +0000

In an act of megalomaniac delusion, Jeff Koons sent cease and desist letters to San Francisco’s Park Life store/gallery for selling balloon animal-shaped bookends, because he forever called dibs on balloon animals by making them giant and shiny. Koons wanted all the bookends, sales records and maker’s info, but Park Life said PFFFT. Meanwhile, clowns watch out.

Ohhh… Alright… Cha-Ching at Christie’s

Marina Galperina — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:00:58 +0000

Jeff Koons’s metallic hemorrhoid and Andy Warhol’s soup porn sold big at Christie’s auctions Pop Art garage sale this week, which raked in loot totaling $273 million. The biggest banked item? A ’64 Roy Lichtenstein Ohhh … Alright … that sold for $42.6 million. As in, ohhh, alright, I give up. Gerhard Richter’s candle pair painting was beautiful, though not unique. Still, I’m glad my massive yawn-induced eye roll landed on its calming fuzzy flames.

Skateboards by Murakami, Hirst and Koons for ‘SURF/SKATE’

Marina Galperina — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:37:07 +0000

SoHo’s Clic Gallery brings the skate bling for its ‘SURF/SKATE’ photo exhibit: Takashi Murakami psycho-toons, Damien Hirst paint vomit and Jeff Koons monkey motif make for some swanky decks. Opens today! Preview the work in the group show of punk, skate and surf culture-glorifying photography below.

The 15-strong group show features shots by 18-year-old Alberto Vargas, Montauk surf legend Tony Caramanico’s mixed media, and Paul Solberg’s photos of CBGB skate punk run-off. “SURF/SKATE,” Group Show, Jul 27 – Sep 5, Clic Gallery, NYC

Drag Race: Damien Hirst vs. Jeff Koons

Marina Galperina — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:40:11 +0000

We’ve seen the BWM Art Car à la Jeff Koons and now that Damien Hirst threw some paint on a pink Audi for Sir Sellout Elton John, we can settle this once and for all. Let’s race these babies, provided that the artists drive the cars themselves: no assistant-elves. Can’t someone slap together a “Most Over-hyped and Also Fastest Artist” trophy hybrid, like a bedazzled balloon? Vroom Vroom?

How To Get Jeff Koons’s Balloons Off Your Google

Marina Galperina — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:29:32 +0000

Google has just launched a new feature that turns its soothingly minimal title page into a background image of your choice, which is a bitch to turn off. Struggling only makes it worse. But, there’s a way to fix it.

Once your eyes have been thoroughly assaulted by dewy yellow flowers and Jeff Koons balloonery, all you want is your white background back. Even Canadians hate it. So, first, calm down. Here’s what you can do: use the Google beta page instead or, choose a white background and stay logged in (but that will make your text all ghostly gray.) C’est la vie.

The outbreak should go away in a month or so, so sit tight. Meanwhile: