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Lot Essay
A piece of found cultural ephemera transformed into nearly indestructible, immaculate steel, Jeff Koons’s Barrel Car taps into many chapters of American history, and marks a seminal moment in the artist’s illustrious career. This finely crafted, delightful object was conceived in 1986 as an edition of three plus an artist proof, and the carriage can also be found in the nine-and-a-half-foot silvery seam of industrial nostalgia in the form of a vintage locomotive and its seven carriages, titled Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Train. The kitschy subject and its glittering surface channels the glamor of a bygone era, an elegy to the ages of steam and steel, while cautioning against the excesses of consumption.
Debuting in 1986, Koons's Luxury and Degradation series was unveiled at the International with Monument Gallery in New York's Lower East Side and Daniel Weinberg Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibition consisted of liquor advertisements and sculptures at once celebrating and critiquing the exploitation that lay behind the successes of the speculators of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries alike, especially those in alcohol or advertising, while commemorating the heroic spirit of these frontiersmen and trailblazers. Advertisements for Gordon’s Gin and Frangelico were exhibited, and objects of the alcohol industry, such as cocktail kits and novelty bottles, were cast in stainless steel. Like Andy Warhol, Koons took iconic elements from the American cultural landscape and employed them as vehicles for a sophisticated exploration of art and society. Koons elaborated, “I wanted to suggest how the idea of luxury, through abstraction, is used to induce a psychological state of degradation” (J. Koons, quoted in T. Kellein (ed.), Jeff Koons Pictures: 1980-2002, exh. cat., Bielefield, 2002, p. 45).
Koons found inspiration through a liquor store window when he spotted a collectible plastic and ceramic decanter modeled after an old-fashioned, steam-powered train. The original train epitomized kitsch in its similarities to art and nostalgic subject matter, using easily digestible contents and concepts to transform a children’s toy into a seductive advertisement targeting adult indulgences. Koons was immediately drawn to the object, recalling, “This would be a great ready-made!” (J. Koons, 2000, quoted in D. Sylvester, Interview with American Artists, London, 2002, p. 34).
The exterior of the train is as equally intoxicating as its contents due to Koons’s decision to cast the object in stainless steel. He explained, “to me, stainless steel is the material of the Proletarian, it’s what pots and pans are made of. It’s a very hard material and it’s fake luxury. If these pieces were in silver, they would be absolutely boring. They have absolutely no desire to be in silver; they could not communicate in silver” (J. Koons quoted in Jeff Koons, exh. cat., San Francisco, 1992, p. 65).
This series represented Koons’s first use of stainless steel in his artworks–a watershed moment that would have a dramatic impact on the rest of his career. Stainless steel could be polished to a mirrored sheen, catching the light and immortalizing objects ranging from the downright tacky to the decadent. Reflective surfaces occur frequently in Koons’s work, which he explores with increasing complexity and technical skill. Gazing into the reflected surface of Barrel Car, we see ourselves, so we are directly implicated within the universe of the artist. “Polishing the metal lent it a desirous surface, but also one that gave affirmation to the viewer. And this is also the sexual part–it’s about affirming the viewer, telling him, ‘You exist!’ When you move it moves. The reflection changes. If you don’t move, nothing happens. Everything depends on you, the viewer” (J. Koons, quoted in M. Ulrich (ed.), Jeff Koons: The Painter, exh. cat., Frankfurt, 2012, p. 78).
And while Barrel Car mimics the appearance of a lavish centerpiece that would have adorned the formal table of a Frick or a Rockefeller, its material is in fact the same one that provided the foundation for the entire railroad industry. Steel arteries once linked the United States, forming vital transitways along which train cars like this one would trundle.
Not only is stainless steel fitting for the nostalgic subject, it also serves a functional purpose, as it is the only material that could eternally preserve the liquor. The hidden compartment containing bourbon is further secured with a tax stamp applied by the Jim Beam Company. Koons claimed that the sanctity of the hidden alcohol was central to the spirit of the work of art: “For me, the bourbon was the soul and the tax-stamp seal was like the interface to the soul” (J. Koons, quoted in D. Sylvester, Interviews with American Artists, London 2002, p. 340). As long as the seal is unbroken, the work remains in a perpetual state of newness, a pristine embodiment of the artist’s desire to create a ‘perfect’ object. However, the work’s survival and the preservation of its ‘spirit’ remain wholly contingent on one’s ability to keep temptation at bay and resist the lure of the liquor within. As Koons explains, “You can drink it and enjoy the bourbon, but you have killed the soul of the piece when you break the tax-stamp seal” (J. Koons, Ibid., p. 56).
Debuting in 1986, Koons's Luxury and Degradation series was unveiled at the International with Monument Gallery in New York's Lower East Side and Daniel Weinberg Gallery in Los Angeles. The exhibition consisted of liquor advertisements and sculptures at once celebrating and critiquing the exploitation that lay behind the successes of the speculators of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries alike, especially those in alcohol or advertising, while commemorating the heroic spirit of these frontiersmen and trailblazers. Advertisements for Gordon’s Gin and Frangelico were exhibited, and objects of the alcohol industry, such as cocktail kits and novelty bottles, were cast in stainless steel. Like Andy Warhol, Koons took iconic elements from the American cultural landscape and employed them as vehicles for a sophisticated exploration of art and society. Koons elaborated, “I wanted to suggest how the idea of luxury, through abstraction, is used to induce a psychological state of degradation” (J. Koons, quoted in T. Kellein (ed.), Jeff Koons Pictures: 1980-2002, exh. cat., Bielefield, 2002, p. 45).
Koons found inspiration through a liquor store window when he spotted a collectible plastic and ceramic decanter modeled after an old-fashioned, steam-powered train. The original train epitomized kitsch in its similarities to art and nostalgic subject matter, using easily digestible contents and concepts to transform a children’s toy into a seductive advertisement targeting adult indulgences. Koons was immediately drawn to the object, recalling, “This would be a great ready-made!” (J. Koons, 2000, quoted in D. Sylvester, Interview with American Artists, London, 2002, p. 34).
The exterior of the train is as equally intoxicating as its contents due to Koons’s decision to cast the object in stainless steel. He explained, “to me, stainless steel is the material of the Proletarian, it’s what pots and pans are made of. It’s a very hard material and it’s fake luxury. If these pieces were in silver, they would be absolutely boring. They have absolutely no desire to be in silver; they could not communicate in silver” (J. Koons quoted in Jeff Koons, exh. cat., San Francisco, 1992, p. 65).
This series represented Koons’s first use of stainless steel in his artworks–a watershed moment that would have a dramatic impact on the rest of his career. Stainless steel could be polished to a mirrored sheen, catching the light and immortalizing objects ranging from the downright tacky to the decadent. Reflective surfaces occur frequently in Koons’s work, which he explores with increasing complexity and technical skill. Gazing into the reflected surface of Barrel Car, we see ourselves, so we are directly implicated within the universe of the artist. “Polishing the metal lent it a desirous surface, but also one that gave affirmation to the viewer. And this is also the sexual part–it’s about affirming the viewer, telling him, ‘You exist!’ When you move it moves. The reflection changes. If you don’t move, nothing happens. Everything depends on you, the viewer” (J. Koons, quoted in M. Ulrich (ed.), Jeff Koons: The Painter, exh. cat., Frankfurt, 2012, p. 78).
And while Barrel Car mimics the appearance of a lavish centerpiece that would have adorned the formal table of a Frick or a Rockefeller, its material is in fact the same one that provided the foundation for the entire railroad industry. Steel arteries once linked the United States, forming vital transitways along which train cars like this one would trundle.
Not only is stainless steel fitting for the nostalgic subject, it also serves a functional purpose, as it is the only material that could eternally preserve the liquor. The hidden compartment containing bourbon is further secured with a tax stamp applied by the Jim Beam Company. Koons claimed that the sanctity of the hidden alcohol was central to the spirit of the work of art: “For me, the bourbon was the soul and the tax-stamp seal was like the interface to the soul” (J. Koons, quoted in D. Sylvester, Interviews with American Artists, London 2002, p. 340). As long as the seal is unbroken, the work remains in a perpetual state of newness, a pristine embodiment of the artist’s desire to create a ‘perfect’ object. However, the work’s survival and the preservation of its ‘spirit’ remain wholly contingent on one’s ability to keep temptation at bay and resist the lure of the liquor within. As Koons explains, “You can drink it and enjoy the bourbon, but you have killed the soul of the piece when you break the tax-stamp seal” (J. Koons, Ibid., p. 56).