Beschreibung:

Jeff Koons I Could Go for Something Gordon’s 1986 inks on canvas in two parts. Overall: 115 x 226.6 cm (45 1/4 x 89 1/4 in). This work is from an edition of two plus one artist’s proof.
Provenance Sonnabend Gallery, New York; Collection Gerald S. Elliott, Chicago Exhibited Los Angeles, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Luxury and Degradation, July – August, 1986 (another example exhibited); New York, International with Monument Gallery, Luxury and Degradation, July – 12 October, 1986; The Art Institute of Chicago, Affinities and Intuitions: The Gerald S. Elliott Collection of Contemporary Art, 22 May – 3 July, 1990; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 10 December, 1992 – February, 1993 and Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 10 July – 3 October, 1993, Jeff Koons; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 28 November, 1992 – 3 January, 1993; Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 22 January – 28 February, 1993; and Staatsgalerie Stattgart, 12 March – 18 April, 1993, Jeff Koons Retrospektiv (another example exhibited) Literature A. Jones, ‘Jeff Koons ‘Et qui libre ?’ in Galeries Magazine, Boulogne, October – November, 1986, p. 96 (illustrated) ; M.A. Staniszewski, ‘Jeff Koons’ in Flash Art, Milan, November – December, 1988, pp. 113-114; T. Dreher, ‘Jeff Koons Objekt-Bilder’ in Artefactum, January – February 1989, p. 8 (illustrated); The Art Institute of Chicago, Affinities and Intuitions: The Gerald S. Elliott Collection of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1990, p. 280, no. 74 (illustrated); A. Muthesius, ed., Jeff Koons Cologne, 1992, p.76, no. 12 (illustrated); R. Rosenblum, ed., The Jeff Koons Handbook, London/New York, 1992, pp. 68-69 (illustrated); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Walker Art Center, eds., Jeff Koons San Francisco, 1992, p.70, no. 25 (illustrated); J. Erik Sorensen and A. Kold, eds., Jeff Koons Aarhus, 1993, pp. 34-35; T. Kellein, ed., Pictures Jeff Koons 1980-2002, New York, 2002, p. 47 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay For the 1986 famed exhibition Luxury and Degradation, Jeff Koons set out to make history in the art world. Following on the critically-acclaimed footsteps of his 1985 Equilibrium exhibit the year before, Koons’ new process investigated yet another aspect of contemporary society with his characteristic wit and resonance. Showcased in both Los Angeles and NewYork, Luxury and Degradation displayed life-size replicas of liquor advertisements and hand-made fabrications of alcohol-derived accoutrements.The combination sought to dazzle and belittle the very structures underlying the commodity of alcohol and its consumptive, corruptive forces.The present lot, I Could Go for Something Gordon’s, a highlight from the show, displays Koons’ knack for recapturing mass-appeal in an attempt to expose the artifice behind advertising slogans and campaigns. It highlights not only Koons’ grand artistic aims of that decade, but also the successful commercialization efforts gaining ground from the strength of the 1980s stock market. Luxury and Degradation (cf. figure 1) was ultimately one of the most important and ambitious exhibitions Koons produced. The artist counterposes that which causes pleasure, through its comfortable indulgence, with dereliction of a moral and behavioral code, debasing and corrupting ones rank or character. As the artist describes, his show undertook the following themes from contemporary society: “I paralleled the alcoholic, the desire for alcohol, and the dependence on alcohol as an underlying debasement and degradation…The show was really telling people not to pursue luxury and to avoid all the dangers of degradation,” (Jeff Koons taken fromT. Kellein, ed., Pictures Jeff Koons 1980-2002, NewYork, 2002, p. 21). Never one to shy away from criticizing contemporary society, Koons’ Luxury and Degradation utilizes media and industry to achieve his artistic aims. As Robert Rosenblum describes, “His wish to communicate with as wide an audience as possible and his belief that the way to do it now is through the media, ‘through TV and advertising, through the film and entertainment industries’ may sound disarmingly crass, but its combination of dumb innocence and shrewd calculation is clearly, for an artist born in the 19