From Photos of the Week at the Atlantic:
A creation titled "Tulips Bouquet" by the U.S. artist Jeff Koons is displayed next to the Petit Palais on October 4, 2019, in Paris. "Bouquet of Tulips" is a monumental work in bronze, stainless steel, and aluminum polychrome, 10 meters high and eight meters wide, weighing 27 tons, offered to France by Koons to pay respect to the victims of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.
[Photo: Stephane Cardinale / Corbis / Getty]
France gives America the Statue of Liberty, and America gives France....this?? And yes, there are echoes, in that hand stretching up, holding a torch - or a bunch of silly plastic tulips.
There must be a few in the crowd there thinking..."hmm...not quite sure...".
By Koons' standards this is restrained. Tasteful, even. I like it as a fun piece of Pop Art. But as a memorial to the victims of a terrorist attack? Well...I dunno.
"Offered to France" - so a gift, presumably. Can't argue with that. Which is maybe how the Parisian authorities felt. Can't argue with a free gift from one of the world's leading artists. If they'd run a competition for a memorial, and had to pay, I doubt this would have been the final choice. The winner would have been some worthy but dull piece which would have sat forlorn and increasingly forgotten as the years went by. A tasteful block of black stone, say. So, clever old Jeff. At least this won't be forgotten so easily.
The thing about Koons is, he does what a lot of artists nowadays claim to do but don't - that is, he challenges your idea of taste. Of art, even. And certainly, here, of memorial art. Does he do it with his tongue in his cheek and an eye on his bank balance? Very possibly. He's enormously wealthy. And this gift to Paris won't harm his image. But with Koons you can never quite tell. I'm not sure even he knows.
Predictably, the work has indeed aroused controversy - Jeff Koons' Paris Bataclan sculpture mocked as 'pornographic'.
Yep. Can't argue with annoying all those crusty old French art snobs. Tellingly, the one parent of a victim of the Bataclan attack quoted said it was "a very strong testament" to France's relationship with the US, adding "for me it represents the colours of life". So there you go. Clever old Jeff.
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