Louis Vuitton x Jeff Koons
New York-based contemporary artist Jeff Koons is known for his eyebrow-raising works of art: the recognisable Michael Jackson and Bubbles life-size porcelain statues, or Balloon Dog (Orange), the stainless steel, faux-balloon-animal dog that holds the record for most expensive piece of art sold at an auction.
One of his head-turning projects is the Gazing Ball collection, a series of large-scale paintings where the artist reproduced historical masterpieces like Vincent van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows and Édouard Manet’s The Surprised Nymph. Along with painting the works by hand, Koon added a blue sphere that sits on a wooden ledge in front of each large-scale painting, which forces the viewer to look at themselves as they gaze at the iconic paintings he has chosen to recreate.
Now, Koons is bringing his Gazing Ball collection to Louis Vuitton. The classic French fashion house will launch a new line of bags and accessories on Friday 28 April 2017, appropriately titled Masters, which will feature Koons’ reproductions of famous paintings. The new range will also feature Louis Vuitton’s LV logo reconfigured with Koons’ initials, a brash step given the fact that Louis Vuitton has never let its logo be manipulated before.
In addition to creating a shared cultural history between Louis Vuitton’s modern pieces and legendary paintings of the past, Koons is bridging a gap between classic art and fashion one could see on the streets of New York or any world-class city. Besides simply being a desirable piece of fashion, the coupling between old and new may force passersby to interpret the works in new ways.
This project is just the first chapter in a planned collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Koons, who has made his name as one of the most influential artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His works are divisive: they have been called gaudy and kitschy, and have been bemoaned for their sky-high price tags. However, it is undeniable that they have found a special place in contemporary art, given their ability to distort the boundaries between haute art and mass consumerist culture. In 2014, The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City ran an exhibition featuring 150 objects spanning Koons’ ground-breaking career from 1979 onwards.
It is a curious, if not exciting, partnership with Louis Vuitton. Since 1854, the company has been a recognised name in high-class products. Louis Vuitton is consistently touted as one of the world’s most recognisable names, with the LV monogram one of the most copied images in fashion. The brand is synonymous with luxury and has on several occasions brought in architects, artists, designers and other high-profile creatives to add their expertise to Louis Vuitton projects.
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