From our man in New York – George Shaw…
Jeff Koons, Balloon Monkey (Orange), 2006-2013
As if his large-scale, Split Rocker floral sculpture wasn’t enough of a showstopper in Rockefeller Plaza this summer, Christie’s has installed Koons’ 12.5 x 20 foot stainless steel sculpture Balloon Monkey (Orange) outside its 20 Rock headquarters ahead of a November 12 auction. Owned by British collector Frank Cohen, it is expected to fetch between $20 and $30m. Koons is the “most expensive living artist at auction” after Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for $58.4m in 2013.
John Gerrard, Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada), 2014
Currently installed in the Lincoln Center plaza, this 28 x 24 foot frameless LED wall is a faithful, digital recreation of a solar thermal power plant in the Nevada desert. As the virtual simulation rotates according to the earth’s axis throughout the day, “the perspective of the viewer gradually shifts from ground level to satellite view every 60 minutes,” so that no view is ever the same.
Chris Marker, From the series Koreans, 1957
It is difficult not to view Chris Marker’s photographic series Koreans at the Peter Blum Gallery, at face value knowing what we do about present day North Korea. Taken in Pyongyang in 1957, four years after the war when Marker was almost the last journalist allowed free access to the streets, but not before “two obligatory sessions of socialist [propaganda] kowtowing,” the images are bittersweet with the simple enjoyments of daily life in a bomb-stricken country about to freeze itself in time.
