Jeff Koons - Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session New York Wednesday, November 20, 2024 | Phillips
  • Cryptic and alluring, Jeff Koons’ Snorkel (Shotgun), 1985, comes from the artist’s pivotal Equilibrium series, which questions our understanding of ordinary objects and how they relate to cultural production. Cast entirely in bronze, the present example is meticulously molded from a functioning snorkel. Rendering the object in bronze, a material more closely associated with monumental sculpture, Koons presents an ironic take on the readymade, elevating a quotidian object by translating its form in the durable artistic media. Uncanny and kitsch, this early work lays the groundwork for Koons’ unrivalled sculpture practice.

     

    A definitive example of Koons' Equilibrium series, Snorkel (Shotgun) marks a defining momnt in the artist's career. The work was notably first exhibited in Koons’ debut solo show at the International with Monument Gallery in New York City’s Lower East Side in 1985. The exhibition was conceived as a “multilayer allegory concerning unattainable states of being” and expanded on Duchamp’s concept of the readymade.i In this series Koons sought to explore contradiction through his bronze cast objects, floating basketballs and Nike posters. The objects—ranging from the present snorkel to a life jacket and a raft—thus take on new meaning. Recreational and safety devices designed in their original form to keep one afloat become satirically non-functional when cast in bronze.

     

    Koons’ groundbreaking early work marked a move beyond both the readymade and appropriation art, exemplifying what Hal Foster coined “commodity sculpture” in The Return of the Real in 1996.ii A product of the 1980s economy, the present example at once parodies and fetishizes the object on which it is based, all the while remaining self-aware of its role as a valuable art object. Abstracting the commodity, Snorkel (Shotgun) marks an early foray that would later culminate in some of Koons’ most iconic works, including Balloon Dog, 1994–2000, and Lobster, 2003.  

     

    i Jeff Koons: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of Art, New York, 2014, p. 18

    ii Hal Foster, The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century, Cambridge, MA, 1996, p. 107

    • Provenance

      International With Monument Gallery, New York
      Pamela Heller, New York
      Private Collection
      Thence by descent to the present owner

    • Exhibited

      New York, International With Monument Gallery, Jeff Koons: Equilibrium, May 4–June 2, 1985 (edition number unknown)
      Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum; Aarhus Kunstmuseum (p. 111); Staatsgalerie Stuggart, Jeff Koons Retrospektiv, November 28, 1992–April 18, 1993, pp. 38–39, 98 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 38)
      New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Jeff Koons: A Retrospective, June 27–October 19, 2014, p. 72 (another example exhibited; International With Monument Gallery, New York, 1985 installation view of another example illustrated)
      Paris, Centre Pompidou, Jeff Koons: A Retrospective, November 26, 2014–April 27, 2015, pl. 31, pp. 78, 231, 298 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 78)
      Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Jeff Koons: A Retrospective, June 9–September 27, 2015, pl. 31, pp. 74, 233, 298 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 74)
      Porto, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, The Sonnabend Collection: Part II, May 11–September 23, 2018, pp. 114–115 (another example exhibited, p. 115)
      Saskatoon, Remai Modern, The Sonnabend Collection, October 5, 2019–March 22, 2020, pp. 140–141, 241 (another example exhibited and illustrated, pp. 140–141)

    • Literature

      Jerry Saltz, "The Dark Side of the Rabbit: Notes on a Sculpture by Jeff Koons," Arts Magazine, vol. 62, no. 6, February 1998, p. 26
      Kim Levin, "His Best Shot," Village Voice, October 14, 1986, p. 96
      Calvin Tomkins, "The Art World: Between Neo- and Post," The New Yorker, November 24, 1986, p. 110
      Alan G. Artner, "Market Valued What Jeff Koons' Work Says About the Art World," The Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1988, p. 16
      Jeff Koons, "The Power of Seduction," Art & Design, 1990, p. 51
      Robert Enright, "The Material Boy and the Femme Fidele," Border Crossings, Winter 1990–1991, p. 38
      Angelika Muthesius, ed., Jeff Koons, Cologne, 1992, p. 166
      Robert Rosenblum, The Jeff Koons Handbook, London, 1992, p. 155
      Jeff Koons and Norman Rosenthal, Jeff Koons: Conversations with Norman Rosenthal, London, 2014, p. 191 (another example illustrated)
      Jeff Koons and Norman Rosenthal, Jeff Koons: Entretiens avec Norman Rosenthal, London, 2014, p. 191 (another example illustrated)
      Hans Werner Holzwarth, ed., Koons, Cologne, 2015, p. 27 (another example illustrated)
      Julie Champion and Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov, Jeff Koons: La Rétrospective Le Portfolio de L'Exposition/The Retrospective The Portfolio of the Exhibition, Paris, 2015, p. 48 (illustrated)
      Jeff Koons: 1979–1999, exh. cat., Art Intelligence Global, Hong Kong, 2024, pp. 40–41 (International With Monument Gallery, New York, 1985 installation view of another example illustrated)

327

Snorkel (Shotgun)

bronze
14 1/2 x 5 x 2 1/2 in. (36.8 x 12.7 x 6.4 cm)
Executed 1985, this work is number 1 from an edition of 3 plus 1 artist's proof and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$150,000 - 200,000 

Sold for $149,860

Contact Specialist

Patrizia Koenig
Specialist, Head of Sale, Afternoon Session
+1 212 940 1279
pkoenig@phillips.com

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session

New York Auction 20 November 2024