Lot 202
  • 202

JEFF KOONS | Jim Beam - Box Car

Estimate
300,000 - 400,000 GBP
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Description

  • Jeff Koons
  • Jim Beam - Box Car
  • stainless steel and bourbon
  • 19.7 by 36.8 by 16.5 cm. 7 3/4 by 14 1/2 by 6 1/2 in.
  • Executed in 1986, this work is number 1 from an edition of 3, plus one artist's proof.

Provenance

International with Monument Gallery, New York
Michael and B.Z. Schwartz, New York
Christie's, New York, 13 May 2008, Lot 17
Private Collection
Private Collection
Christie's, New York, 11 November 2015, Lot 427
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Literature

Andrea Muthesius, Ed., Jeff Koons, Cologne 1992, p. 27, illustrated in colour (ed. no. unknown)
Robert Rosenblum, The Jeff Koons Handbook, New York 1993, p. 157 (text)
Exh. Cat., New York, Craig F. Starr Gallery, Jeff Koons- Jim Beam - J.B. Turner Engine and six individual cars, February - March 2015, n.p. (text)
Exh. Cat. London, Newport Street Gallery, Jeff Koons: Now, May - October 2016, p. 44, no. 81, illustrated in colour 

Condition

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals some superficial handling marks and superficial and shallow scratches in isolated places. There is some dust that has adhered to the crevices of the work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

“I was walking down Fifth Avenue and I saw in a liquor store this train that was made out of plastic and porcelain. It was a Jim Beam train. What caught my interest was the possibility to transform it and to cast it in stainless steel and bring it to a mirror finish, but also to maintain the soul of the piece, which was the liquor inside” (Jeff Koons cited in: Exh. Cat., San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Jeff Koons: Retrospective, 1992, p. 65). Jim Beam - Box Car, executed in in 1986, is a consummate example of Jeff Koons’ formal and ideological interests, marking a decisive evolution from the fluorescently lit readymades that typify his early hoover works, towards the radiant mirrored surfaces that are emblematic of Koons’ oeuvre. Marrying brazen, risqué imagery with the innocent quality of trinkets and toys, Koons’ monumental practice has incited wonder over the scale, seamless finish, and complex social critique that substantiates his extraordinary paintings and sculptures, distinguishing him as a generation-defining artist of the Postmodern period. Representing a key work in his Luxury and Degradation series, the chromed, stainless steel train carriage of Jim Beam - Box Car nods to the readymades of Marcel Duchamp – removing the ornate decanter from its window display and refashioning it as an artwork – whilst inciting the bourgeois, kitsch, decadent surfaces of the height of luxury.

In the Luxury and Degradation series, Koons’ interest in the mobility and transcendent quality of art is symbolised with Machiavellian intellect. Appropriating the billboard and magazine adverts for liquor – including Bacardi rum, Gordon’s gin, Hennessy cognac, Frangelico liqueur – the seductive and aspirational stylising of the ad campaign is internalised by the image as a work of art. What Koons exhibits is the banal, faux-luxury of the original, ‘degraded’ by his removing it from circulation as a tool of capital. The adverts and train carriage decanters of the Luxury and Degradation series invert the Pop ideology of Andy Warhol, presenting the oversized, fetishised version of the original, instead of multiplying and disseminating the image as an attainable piece of celebrity. Jim Beam - Box Car is exemplary of how Koons negotiates taste and social structures, employing the material implications of stainless steel – “the material of the Proletarian” (Ibid.) – maintaining the use function of the carriage as a vessel for Jim Beam Bourbon, and idolising it as an art object. This layered, ingenious philosophy of commerciality, social aspiration, and desire is the cornerstone of Koons’ oeuvre, and in the present work, composed in resplendent chrome, is quintessential in its aestheticising of the everyday object.

The Duchampian tradition of extracting the readymade work of art from the plethora of the mundane is central to Koons’ method of production. But, as Arthur C. Danto writes, “though they contain readymades as components, [the works] are by no means ready-made in their own right. They are deeply imagined works, designed with fantasy and an almost surrealist imagination” (Arthur C. Danto, ‘Banality and Celebration: The art of Jeff Koons’, in: Exh. Cat., Oslo, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Jeff Koons: Retrospective, 2004, p. 131). In the present work, Koons establishes a beguiling tension between the cosmetic extravagance of the chrome surface of the fastidiously rendered train carriage, and the conventional contents of the decanter. This compelling dichotomy – between consumerist desire and transcendent artwork – rendered in the iconic chrome of Koons’ later sculptures, lends Jim Beam - Box Car a fantastical quality, and enshrines the core tenets of Koons’ practice in a dramatic, gleaming emblem.