TEFAF Online New York 2020 | Fairs | Fairs & Collecting

Gagosian is pleased to participate in TEFAF Online New York 2020 with a special presentation of Cherubs (1991) by Jeff Koons.

A wall sculpture in polychromed wood, Cherubs forms a key part of Koons’s renowned Made in Heaven series (1989–91) and merges his investigation of kitsch aesthetics and commodity culture with a veneration of Baroque craftsmanship—it was carved by artisans from the Bavarian village of Oberammergau. In the work, the pastel-tinted, flower-decked busts of two angelic putti echo the rich gilding and ornamentation associated with ecclesiastical interiors of the Counter-Reformation. In an update for the modern era that also alludes to other works by Koons, a teddy bear is nestled within the upper figure’s fluttering wings. Making reference to the Rococo visions of Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher, and evoking the cavorting figures of Cupid or Eros, Cherubs combines the religious and the sensual, bringing divergent conceptions of taste and value into confrontation with one another.

A new essay on Cherubs by art historian Sydney Stutterheim and an associated video will be published on the Gagosian and TEFAF websites to accompany the presentation.

For further information on the work, please contact inquire@gagosian.com. To register for the fair, visit tefaf.com.

Download the full press release (PDF)

Jeff Koons, Cherubs, 1991 © Jeff Koons. Photo: Rob McKeever

From the Quarterly

Jeff Koons: Easyfun-Ethereal

Learn more about Jeff Koons’s Easyfun-Ethereal series in this video featuring Rebecca Sternthal, one of the organizers behind the most recent exhibition of these works in New York.

The Bigger Picture
Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons speaks with Alison McDonald and Maura Harty about his longstanding commitment to protecting the rights of children.

In Conversation
Jeff Koons Glenn Fuhrman

The FLAG Art Foundation hosted a conversation between Jeff Koons and FLAG founder Glenn Fuhrman, in which the two discuss the dichotomy between sexuality and childhood innocence in Koons’s oeuvre, remaking Made in Heaven with Lady Gaga, what drives Koons to make more work, and several works including Cat on a Clothesline (1994–2001) and Winter Bears (1988).

The Last 36 Hours

Derek Blasberg speaks with Scott Rothkopf, a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, about the last thirty-six hours of the Jeff Koons retrospective, which also marked the end of the museum’s tenure in uptown Manhattan.

Jeff Koons: A Retrospective

Jeff Koons’s first, mammoth one-man show opens at the Whitney today, which is also the last show at the museum’s Madison Avenue location.

Laws of Motion

Catalyzed by Laws of Motion—a group exhibition pairing artworks from the 1980s on by Jeff Koons, Cady Noland, Rosemarie Trockel, and Jeff Wall with contemporary sculptures by Josh Kline and Anicka Yi—Wyatt Allgeier discusses the convergences and divergences in these artists’ practices with an eye to the economic worlds from which they spring.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Fall 2019

The Fall 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Sinking (2019) by Nathaniel Mary Quinn on its cover.

Intimate Grandeur: Glenstone Museum

Paul Goldberger tracks the evolution of Mitchell and Emily Rales’s Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland. Set amid 230 acres of pristine landscape and housing a world-class collection of modern and contemporary art, this graceful complex of pavilions, designed by architects Thomas Phifer and Partners, opened to the public in the fall of 2018.

Visions of the Self: Jenny Saville on Rembrandt

Jenny Saville reveals the process behind her new self-portrait, painted in response to Rembrandt’s masterpiece Self-Portrait with Two Circles.

The Bigger Picture
RxART

Derek Blasberg speaks with Diane Brown, president and founder of RxART, and with contributing artists Dan Colen, Urs Fischer, and Jeff Koons about the transformative power of visual art.

Split-Rocker: A Landscaping Perspective

Jeff Koons’s flowering sculpture Split-Rocker, at once imposing and adorable, has cast a spell on New York City’s Rockefeller Center. Derek Blasberg interviews Matt Donham, Koons’s landscape designer on the project, to find out more.