Jeff Koons's cavernous studio is already humming with activity when
he arrives a little past 10 on a bright September morning, striding
across the floor like a chef inspecting his kitchen. A former nightclub
(one glass partition still bears its name, Amnesia, engraved in script),
the multilevel space is crowded with wooden packing crates, ladders,
and larger-than-life statues swathed in sheets of plastic like shiny
togas. In the midst of this fantastical scene stands a slender woman
with cropped auburn hair and a serious expression. Her name is Svetlana
Kuzmicheva-Uspenskaya, and she's a collector of Koons's work as well as
his friend and, most recently, collaborator. Her philanthropic
organization, Project Perpetual, will auction new works by Koons to
raise money for the United Nations Foundation in November. "The idea for
Jeff's contribution was originally smaller," she says, "and then with
his touch, it grew into what we have now."
What they have now, exactly, involves a medium that Koons has never
worked with before: handbags. Specifically, about a dozen Hermès Birkins
of varying sizes and colors. These are no "ordinary" Birkins (if such a
thing exists)—they have been donated by Marc Jacobs, Sofia Coppola,
Diane von Furstenberg, and others, and will be incorporated into Koons's
works for the auction. "I wanted to have people participate so that
it's not just about writing a check," says Kuzmicheva-Uspenskaya, who
was born in St. Petersburg and currently lives in Paris with her
husband, businessman Alexey Kuzmichev, and their five-year-old son.
"It's about people giving something tangible and significant, that they
have an attachment to," she explains. "The Birkin bag is a symbol of
luxury that everyone recognizes."
"I wanted to make a work of art that could be in a museum and that I could be proud of." —Jeff Koons
The auction's star piece will be a nearly six-foot-tall plaster sculpture, inspired by Pablo Picasso's 1902 painting
La Soupe (The Soup),which
depicts a woman proffering soup to a young girl. In Koons's piece, the
woman is holding a Birkin bag. "I've been asked many times to make works
for charity," says Koons. "It's a little difficult for an artist to do
that, because you just make your work. But I became very engaged in this
program. I wanted to make a piece that could work for the charity, a
work of art that could be in a museum, and that I could be proud of."
For Kuzmicheva-Uspenskaya, November's event is only the beginning:
She will soon enlist more artists for Project Perpetual's donation-led
initiatives. "People could give lipstick—I don't care," she says. "When
you give up an object of value and then an artist transforms it, I
believe it will touch people." Or, with Project Birkin, they can carry
it.
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/reviews/jeff-koons-birkin-bag-auction-1114
No comments:
Post a Comment