It’s been a summer of Koons-mania in NYC and now that fall is here, we’re wrapping Jeff up. Not really – but The Whitney Museum WILL stay open for 36 hours, from 11AM October 18 through 11PM October 19, to celebrate the closing of their “Jeff Koons: A Retrospective” and the Madison Avenue galleries. (Next spring the museum will reopen in its new location on The High Line in the Meatpacking District.) The New York Times reports that Koons “may make an appearance in the dead of night.” (One would imagine he’d have to drop by to say farewell to the work goes back to the the many millionaires various homes and art storage.)
Meanwhile, as his “Split Rocker” flower sculpture has left it’s Rockefeller Center home, Christie’s auction house is ready to take up the slack by displaying his “Balloon Monkey (Orange)” at its 20 Rockefeller Plaza entrance for six weeks, before its (more-than-likely record-setting) sale on November 12. Estimate: $20-30,000,000. Oh, it’s a Koons, Koons World, we just live in it.
Balloon Monkey (orange) was just shown for the first time last year at Gagosian in Chelsea