By JRS
In 1985, when billionaire Greek industrialist Dakis Joannou bought the first piece of his now world-renowned contemporary art collection—a basketball signed by Dr. Jay submerged in a tank of water and simply titled “Equilibrium”—it started two chain reactions. One, Mr. Koons would never have to worry about people buying his work again, as Jonnau has been very successful in buying up most of it for his monolithic museum in Athens. Secondly, Joannou would be very adept in helping to solidify emerging artists and future greats (Terrence Koh, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami), as well as helping to shape the very nature of collecting.
And thus, in the middle of last week, the world got the first look at Jeff Koons’ curatorial debut: “Skin Fruit: Selections for the Dakis Joannou Collection.” On how he chose the pieces for the exhibition, Koons told SPREAD ArtCulture: “I did everything very intuitively. I’ve known Dakis since 1985, and from meeting with him and following the collection from that time, I just wanted to try and capture what I felt represented his interests and his ambition and broadness in collecting contemporary art…but very intuitively.”
SPREAD ArtCulture: Is this your first of many curating efforts?
Jeff Koons: I think artists always curate their own work, but I have an Ed Paschke show that will open in about two weeks that I will curate that I brought together. But it’s like anything: When you’re creating an artwork, you’re just following your interests, and in curating, it’s the same thing. But it’s intuitive, there’s a lot of great work. Some of the best art pieces, some of the best works in the collection, aren’t here. Maybe they’re on loan or it’s an artist’s work that didn’t it within this context of looking at the body.
SAC: How did you choose the pieces in this show and under what context?
JK: It’s just my intuition. I would go through the collection and choose works that I felt represented Dakis’s desire with the collection, and I would go back through and go over them again, and I would find that I was always coming up with the same things. And I made models of the museum; I would lay things out and they developed their own relationships, and it’s just the same when you’re following your own ideas and creating your own works that this happens. It got to a point where if I would try and move something on one of the floors, and take it from one location to another, for me, it just wouldn’t work.
Some of the artists we were able to speak to at the opening, such as Terence Koh, were far less articulate about their involvement in the show:
A sculpture by Terence Koh
SPREAD ArtCulture: Tell me about your involvement in Skin Fruit.
Terence Koh: I was just chosen.
SAC: What are you working on now?
TK: Drinking water.
Koh was the only artist to have sculptures, as well as paintings, in the show.
Some patrons, such as the Chelsea behemoth Tony Shafrazi, were able to weigh in with the learned authority of and award-winning curator (Shafrazi was the recipient of Rob Pruitt’s “Best Group Show” in 2009 at the first ever Art Awards):
"Noodles" by Urs Fischer
SPREAD ArtCulture: What do you think of the show?
Tony Shafrazi: I love the show! I think it’s an eclectic wonderful representation of what’s going on. Dakis is a great collector, and has been for many years, and you see such a great mixture of young, new work, such as been selected from a great many things. I love this Fischer piece right here (Urs Fischer’s “Noodles”), don’t you just love it? It’s one of my favorite pieces in the place. Every piece in here is interesting.
Charles Ray's "Aluminum Girl"
"Fall '91" by Charles Ray (foreground); Terence Koh's "Chocolate Mountains" (background)
Charles Ray's "Revolution Counter-Revolution"
A piece by Downtown favorite and partner of the late Dash Snow, Dan Colen
Dan Altmejd's calamitous "Giant"
Maurizio Cattelan's very bland and largely pedantic "All," an eight-piece installation featuring life-size body bags carved from Carrara marble
"Untitled (Jack)" by Paul McCarthy, which could be a prop straight out of Kubrick
A wonderfully whimsical and weird colloboration by the team of Paul McCarthy and Paula Jones
A wonderfully whimsical and weird colloboration by the team of Paul McCarthy and Paula Jones
There seemed to be a very even split among opening-night patrons as to whether or not the show was a success. Check it out for yourself until June 6th and let us know what you think.
