Jeff Koons’ recent time in Paris has certainly had its ups and downs. This January, the artist was due to show a selection of large-scale sculptures in the Louvre’s 19th-century galleries, to run alongside his current retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, which runs until April 27.
But now it has been confirmed that the show has fallen through. A Centre Pompidou spokesman involved in the Louvre display told the Art Newspaper that the cancellation was due to “a lack of funding.” Vanity Fair had reported last July that “at the Louvre, in January 2015, Koons will install a selection of his large-scale balloon sculptures, including Balloon Rabbit, Balloon Swan, and Balloon Monkey, in the 19th-century galleries”. Unfortunately, this will no longer be the case and fans of the artist will just have to make do with the Beaubourg gallery displays instead.
Koons has not had an easy time of late. Only a few weeks after the opening of his Pompidou retrospective last December, the artist was accused of plagiarism by adman Franck Davidovici. This was followed by the estate of the well-known French photographer Jean-François Bauret suing the Koons for copying one of his best-known images, for the 1988 sculpture titled Naked.
The sculpture created in porcelain is part of Koons’ “Banality” series and would have been on display in his current retrospective, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris had it not been damaged, but the work was illustrated in the current catalogue which is where it was noticed by Bauret’s wife.
Having already lost two copyright cases brought against him for works from the same series, at present it seems things are not working out for Jeff Koons.
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