Lot 53
53
Jeff Koons (b. 1955)

Details
Jeff Koons (b. 1955)

Two Kids

stainless steel
23 x 14½ x 14½in. (58.4 x 36.8 x 36.8cm.)

Executed in 1986. This work is the only artist's proof from an edition of three and is to be sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist.
Literature
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Objectives: The New Sculpture, New York 1990, (illustration of another example).
Stedelijk van Abbe-Museum, Jeff Koons, Amsterdam 1992, p. 37 (illustration of another example).
A. D'Offay, J. Koons, and R. Rosenblum, The Jeff Koons Handbook: A Catalogue Raisonné, London 1992, p. 159.
J. Caldwell et al., Jeff Koons, San Francisco 1992, no. 33 (illustration of another example).
ed. A. Muthesius, Jeff Koons, Cologne 1992, p. 90, no. 6 (illustrated).
Exhibited
New York, Sonnabend Gallery, Jeff Koons, Oct.-Nov. 1986.
Kassel, Museum Fridericianum, Schlaf der Vernumst, Feb-May 1988.
Further details
END OF SALE

Lot Essay

Two Kids is from the series titled Statuary, first exhibited by Koons at Sonnabend Gallery in 1987. In addition to Two Kids, the exhibition included castings of a bust of Louis XIV, a caricature of Bob Hope, a rococo coach, flowers, a lascivious doctor and his patient, an 18th century bust of an Italian woman, a mermaid troll, a fisherman troll and a rabbit. Cast in stainless steel, Koons gives an industrial material the allure of polished silver.

Taken as a whole, the objects in the series evoke a world of desire reflected back on itself, its presence suggested by the frozen blankness of the material in which it is embodied...What we see is our frustrated desire to touch, to hold, and in the context of an art gallery, to own (J. Caldwell, op. cit., p. 12).