Big Dog Buys Balloon Dog?
Private sale
Jeff Koon’s Balloon Dog
Reported price: $17 million
Above: Balloon Dog belonging to the Eli Broad Foundation
Right now it’s just a rumor. But if it’s true, Steven Cohen is at it again, doing what he seems to do best: overpaying for another trophy artwork.
According to a mention in today’s Baer Faxt newsletter, several sources have let it leak that the billionaire hedge fund manager bought Jeff Koons‘ Balloon Dog, directly from the artist, for the mind-numbing sum of $17 million. (Inquiring minds want to know: Does “directly from the artist” mean that Koons’ dealer, Larry “Go-Go” Gagosian, is cut out of the deal?)
Never mind that Koons’ auction record already hovers around $5.5 million, for that monument to kitsch, Michael Jackson and Bubbles. Or that Koons, a former commodities broker, has perfected the art of puckering up to patrons. Cohen routinely pays triple market value. Or more. The fact is, $17 mil is loose change to Stevie. We’re talking about the guy who reportedly bought a de Kooning woman painting from David Geffen for $137.5 million last fall. And who was on deck to snag Picasso’s La Reve for $139 million—that is, until the seller, hotelier Steve Wynn, poked his pointy elbow through it.
So, what’s behind this latest example of conspicuous collecting?
Is it puppy envy? I hear that Cohen’s famous collecting neighbors, Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour, have a replica of Koons’ topiary Puppy on their Greenwich estate. And that several other prominent billionaires own a balloon dog sculpture (you think there’s only one?), including François Pinault (magenta) and Eli Broad (blue, seen above).
Maybe this is simply another name-brand bauble. From what the Cohen camp leaks to the press about his collection (destined for a vanity museum, ‘natch), it features signature works by art world superstars, ranging from Monet water lilies to a Pollock drip painting, from a Warhol Superman to Hirst’s shark in formaldehyde. Frankly, it’s unclear what vision unifies these works, aside from a vague, market-driven notion of “the best of the best.”
In that context, it makes perfect sense that Cohen should throw a few coins at Koons, the manic self-promoter once deemed by New Republic critic Mark Stevens as a “decadent artist [who] lacks the imaginative will to do more than trivialize and italicise his themes….another of those who serve the tacky rich.” Supporters see him as a sly cultural critic in the tradition of Duchamp and Warhol, holding up a mirror to the mind-numbing banality of our culture.
And winking his way all the way to the bank.
Which he must be doing right now, having reportedly scored $17 million for a non-unique work that he never physically touched. As I mentioned before, Balloon Dog is a multiple. It comes in red, blue, silver, orange—any color you want, Mr. Billionaire Collector. Koons even put out an edition of porcelain plates based on the concept. And as everyone in the art world knows, the only thing Koons contributed to them is the idea; fabricators do all the dirty work of actually making the things. (Indeed, the artist once told Artforum that he often feels a “jet lag” when traveling from his Manhattan Upper East Side home or his Soho studio to the distant world of his Brooklyn fabrication plant.)
I don’t mean to pick on Steve Cohen, really. I, for one, would be more than happy to bask in the glow of his AbEx treasures. But as an advocate for thoughtful connoisseurship, collecting stewardship and market sanity, I will continue to voice my incredulity and frustration at the message such heedless spending sends to this greedy, unregulated market. Cohen’s not the only one, god knows, but he’s arguably the most conspicuous art buyer at the moment who is making the endeavor of collecting far more about the money than about the art.
Because hey, if he spent that much, it must be good, right?
