傑夫·昆斯

Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2010

New York, Gagosian Gallery, Jeff Koons New Paintings, 2009-10, p. 12, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the overall tonality is slightly brighter and fails to convey the metallic quality of the silver paint. Condition: This work is in very good condition. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
"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.
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Hole III is one of the most visually arresting works from Jeff Koons’s remarkable recent series of paintings, Landscapes. An optical tour-de-force that confronts the viewer with equal power head on or from a distance, seemingly abstract swirls of paint leap exuberantly off the canvas against a background of minutely detailed ‘printed’ dots in a manner not dissimilar to Lichtenstein’s use of the Benday dot. Yet abstraction proceeds to resolve into figuration on stepping away from the canvas to reveal the focal point of the image: the hole itself as compositional anchor and mythical source.

The central motif of the present work draws from a legacy initiated by Gustave Courbet's masterpiece from 1866, The Origin of the World. The influence of this canonical work on the Landscapes series is made evident through Koons referring to his illustrations of female genitalia within his paintings as "the origin" (The artist, cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Gagosian Gallery, Jeff Koons, New Paintings, Los Angeles, 2009-10, p. 13). Koons infuses a playful element into his treatment of the subject, a recurring leitmotif within his most recent paintings, adding a Postmodern Pop angle to the theme. Whereas in earlier examples of the series, the ‘origin’ drawing was executed in silver ink, hovering palely above the ground, the subject is articulated with definitive authority in Hole III. Whilst the silver pigment remains, looping in a graceful arc around the central area and descending in elegant curves to the base of the canvas, the hole is emphasised by the only use of solid black pigment, clustering forcefully at the centre of the canvas. The depth of the black imbues the hole with a sense of extraordinary three-dimensionality, the colours around the edge seeming to swirl into its central maw. Cosmic comparisons can perhaps be drawn, with the hole being evocative of a singularity at the centre of a universe, causing matter to spiral inexorably towards its embrace, both destroyer and ultimately, creator. When viewed in this context, The Origin of the World thus seems particularly apposite as a source of inspiration for the Landscapes series, evoking the ancient, primeval connections between femininity and procreation.

Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnes (1946-66) is a further influence on the subject matter of Hole III.  A combination of readymade and painting, Étant donnes casts the viewer in the role of voyeur, forcing the onlooker to peer through the cracks of a wooden door to reveal an image of a naked, recumbent woman, legs splayed, within an oddly disconcerting landscape. Koons recalled seeing the work in his teens, and in 2002 discussed how a dormant interest in Duchamp had suddenly arisen: "I’ve returned to really enjoying Duchamp. This whole world seems to have opened itself up again to me, the dialogue with art" (The artist, cited in: Ibid., p. 21).

Hole III is a masterpiece of technical precision, displaying Koon’s magnificent control of the genre. The remarkable ‘diffusion’ technique – the layering of coloured dots on canvas to achieve a vibrant, pulsating effect – is achieved by feeding the photographic background image into Photoshop, where the colours are broken up into their separate components (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and separated into lighter and darker areas of colour. Francis Naumann reflects on the importance of this technique in Koons’s paintings, noting that he uses "the half-tone filter in Photoshop not only to diffuse imagery, but in some instances as an assertive pictorial device in its own right" (Ibid., p. 19). The vast, feathery brushstrokes, bursting with energy, recur throughout the series, scored like graffiti across the canvas ground, their spontaneous joy contrasting brilliantly with the precision of the computer generated dots. Reminiscent in style of both Pop Art and the great masters of Abstract Expressionism, these washes of paint actually hail from a painting by Koons’ two year old son that has been photographed and blown up to immense size, allowing Koons to subtly mock the pretensions of the preceding generations of American painters. The resulting work is a true masterpiece of Koons’s oeuvre; a joyful, exuberant exemplar of the remarkable developments Koons has sardonically pioneered.