For all its pristine surfaces and seemingly dispassionate objectivity, it seems that even from early-on, the work of all-American post-Popster Jeff Koons—which makes up the second show at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery—has packed a powerful punch this side of the Atlantic. Jeff Koons: Now (18 May–16 October) is the UK’s most comprehensive Koons exhibition to date, with all the works—spanning more than three decades—taken from Hirst’s extensive Murderme art collection. While sneaking an early look at the array of 36 Koons paintings and sculptures, we discovered that right from the beginning both Hirst and Koons-expert Professor Michael Archer have both had important early Damascene moments in front of the oeuvre of Mr K.
Hirst was just a second-year Goldsmith’s student when in1987 he made one of his many pilgrimages up to the original Saatchi Gallery on Boundary Road. He recalls being “blown away” by his first sightings of Koons’s fluorescent-lit vacuum cleaners, floating basketballs and stainless steel train-shaped bourbon decanter, all receiving their first UK airing in Saatchi’s mixed New York Art Now show. Now there are examples of all the above on show at Newport Street, and Koons is a good friend of Hirst’s as well as an admired artistic compadre.
Then speaking at yesterday’s (12 May) preview Prof Archer also revealed that he too had attended the 1987 Saatchi show—in those days in the role of assistant editor at Art Monthly—where he confessed to experiencing utter mystification in front of Koons’s water-suspended basketballs, recalling that “I so didn't understand what I was seeing, that I decided I had better spend the rest of my life working it out!” So even if the establishment has not yet given Koons the major show he merits, it seems that being KO’d by Koons has served both these Brits extremely well.