傑夫·昆斯

Sonnabend Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2013

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is redder in the original. Condition: Please refer to the department for a professional condition report.
"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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Jeff Koons’ Lobster Wall Relief stands as a provocative development of the artist’s instantly recognisable sculpture Lobster from 2003. The process by which Lobster was created typifies the collaborative nature of Koons’ studio. Production begins with Koons seeking out a genuine plastic pool toy. A mould is formed around the inflated toy and further covered in a coating to protect the integrity and natural plasticity of the object. The precise contours carefully recorded, the work is finally cast in aluminium, whereby it returns to Koons’ studio to be painted in vibrant red, yellow, white and black. Lobster masterfully appropriates the appearance of a light pool toy invoking an intriguing tension between the work’s physical appearance and what we know to be true about its weighty material composition. For Koons, “the finished work… always emanates a sensuous appeal, triggering desires deeply familiar to consumerist behaviour. With Koons we are dealing with seduction” (Rainer Crone cited in: Exh. Cat., New York, C&M Arts, Jeff Koons: Highlights of 25 Years, 2004, p. 9). In the present work Koons ingeniously takes his playfully ironic appropriation to the next level. To create the seductive surfaces of Lobster Wall Relief, Koons first photographed his sculpture Lobster, which is itself a reproduction of a pool toy, and enlarged the image to the size of his original sculpture. In doing so, Koons takes Lobster Wall Relief one stage further from the original, and adds another layer of his characteristic wry irony. Intertwining humour, sex and art historical references, the present work exemplifies the accumulation of themes from throughout Koons’ oeuvre.

Lobster Wall Relief certainly seduces. Besides the inherent and complex tactility provided by its contradictory surface, which is flat and shiny yet appears sculptural, the lobster, according to Koons himself, exudes both male and female sexuality. The body of the lobster with its long mid-section and projecting claws is implicitly phallic. The tail of the sculpture, conversely, is feminine in its smooth undulations. Lobster Wall Relief, however, is an equally meaningful and deliberate homage to his Surrealist and Dada predecessors: Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp and Dalí, despite their stylistic and conceptual differences, both used their art to render the ordinary extraordinary and in Lobster Wall Relief, so too does Koons.

Koons’ choice of a lobster is an evident reference to Dalí. In his seminal work Lobster Telephone from 1936, Dalí fastened a rubber lobster onto the back of a rotary telephone receiver. The resulting work embodies a central tenet of Surrealism: the juxtaposition of two seemingly disparate entities to create an entirely novel object, verging on the absurd. Koons similarly subverted the quotidian by transforming an inflatable pool toy into a solid sculpture. Herein, Lobster Wall Relief also quotes the work of Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp’s major artistic breakthrough came from declaring bought and found objects as art, thereby de-prioritising the skill of the artist. Speaking while in the midst of his Popeye series Koons stated: “I’ve returned to the ready-made. I’ve returned to really enjoying thinking about Duchamp. The whole world seems to have opened itself up again to me, the dialogue of art” (Jeff Koons cited in: Exh. Cat., Versailles, Versailles Palace, Jeff Koons: Versailles, 2008, p. 25). With Lobster Wall Relief, “[Koons] proves himself at once the most slavish adherent to Duchamp’s legacy and also its strongest and canniest misinterpreter. For if the Frenchman proposed that any object could be art by virtue of the artist’s declaration alone, then Koons makes it so not just by naming it as such but by investing its double with the most hard-won and exacting mimetic methodologies” (Scott Rothkopf cited in: Exh. Cat., London, Gagosian Gallery, Jeff Koons: Hulk Elvis, 2009, p. 40). Paying tribute to Surrealism and Dada, but never surrendering his characteristic humour or extreme focus on technical precision, Lobster Wall Relief creates a singular impact: we are visually attracted, sensually seduced, and conceptually challenged all at once.