Ross: Art, the middle class, and creating the trappings of wealth
May 17, 2019, 6:55 AM | Updated: 8:01 am
A man looks at the art work of Jeff Koons during a media preview of his retrospective at The Whitney Museum of American Art on June 24, 2014 in New York City. Nearly the entire museum will be filled with four decades of Koons' work; it opens to the public June 27th. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
(Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
My brother Peter works at the Tallix foundry in New York and in 1986 an artist came in with a 3-foot inflatable lawn ornament. He spent around $30,000 to have it cast in stainless steel.
Pete remembers what his crew was thinking about this guy.
“We all thought this guy was gonna be out in six months,” he said, laughing a bit. “Spend all his money and not get anywhere.”
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Pete thought it was a dead end. But the guy just kept coming back … with all sorts of balloon animals, and other weird stuff, which was duplicated down to the tiniest detail.
“He’s always very friendly, but he gets what he wants,” Peter said.
It was that inflatable rabbit, cast 33 years ago for Jeff Koons by a group of craftsmen — including my brother — that was auctioned by Christie’s this week for $91.1 million.
It may look like just a very shiny bunny, but to Christie’s art curator, “It also stands as one of the most important sculptures of the second half of the 20th century.”
And it’s a reminder that the trappings of great wealth are crafted by the middle class.
By the way, Peter also built the stainless steel radio microphone weather vane I use as my Twitter icon.
You should check it out. It is not for sale. Although, for $91 million …
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