Jeff Koons, presented by BMW

12/22/21 • 61 min

1 Listener

Talk Art HOLIDAYS SPECIAL!!! This very special episode was recorded from Pace Gallery, New York!!! We are proud to collaborate again with BMW to bring you a conversation with iconic artist Jeff Koons.

We discuss Jeff's passion for art which he discovered at an early age, we discuss his student years in Chicago and working for Ed Paschke, whose technicolor renderings of superheroes and other pop icons were an early source of inspiration. We learn of Koons’s first job at the Museum of Modern Art, and his first major works that invoked commodity fetishism: titled The New, they comprised vacuum cleaners displayed on or in Plexiglas boxes over grids of fluorescent light. We explore why he chose stainless steel and reflective surfaces within his most celebrated sculptures and how art can truly change lives.

Jeff Koons’ latest collaboration with BMW is THE 8 X JEFF KOONS, a hand-painted limited interpretation of a BMW M850i xDrive. The special edition BMW will debut in spring, but we met with Koons to discuss how and why this exclusive vehicle came into being. And as we soon learned: It’s about more than just the car. The 8 Series Gran Coupe will be for sale in a limited collector’s edition after its world premiere at Frieze Los Angeles in February 2022.

In 2010, Koons created a unique BMW M3 GT2 Art Car which performed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. The Koons BMW M3 GT2 is now part of the BMW Art Car collection (➜ Read also: The history of BMW Art Cars), placing the artist in the same category as fellow BMW Art Car creators like Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, and David Hockney, to name a few.

That same year, the rock singer Bono from U2 wrote in an editorial for the New York Times that Jeff Koons should have a part in designing the car of the future. BMW and Koons continued the conversation and are now proud to announce their latest collaboration at the invitation of Angelika Nollert, director of Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, in Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne.

Follow @JeffKoons and @PaceGallery for more information. Visit http://www.jeffkoons.com/ and for more information on his new car with BMW: https://www.bmw.com/en/design/bmw-8-x-jeff-koons.html

Special thanks to @BMWUK and @BMWGroupCulture for this extraordinary trip to see such inspiring art! And happy birthday to @BMWGroupCulture for 50 years of cultural engagement. We can’t wait to see more exciting projects in the new year... Thanks for listening everyone!! Have a wonderful holidays... see you for more Talk Art adventures in 2022!!!!

For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. Talk Art theme music by Jack Northover @JackNorthoverMusic courtesy of HowlTown.com We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. For all requests, please email [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Follow @JeffKoons and @PaceGallery for more information. Visit http://www.jeffkoons.com/ and for more information on his new car with BMW: https://www.bmw.com/en/design/bmw-8-x-jeff-koons.html

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Aisling Bea

Russell & Robert meet the ONE AND ONLY writer, actor, comedian, global icon AISLING BEA!!!

Recorded at Aisling’s home in London on Fireworks night 5th November, we speak about growing up in Kildare, Ireland and an inspiring art teacher Gill Berry who transformed the way Aisling and her sister, and highly respected costume designer, Sinéad Kidao saw the world! We discuss how art education can help to come to terms with her childhood grief and many of life’s challenges and the lasting impact of Gill’s art lessons on Aisling’s writing including her award winning TV series ‘This Way Up’.

We learn about Aisling’s passion for collecting and living with art including artworks by the late painter Bartholomew Beal who passed away in 2019, fellow comedian Joe Lycett, cartoonist Will McPhail, Charlie Mackesy, Annie McGrath, Eleanor Thom, Lynn Kennedy, Oliver Kilby and Clare Henderson. We explore the importance of playfulness, combatting writers block, happy memories of her mother, a former jockey, and their creative home environment to help Aisling to be herself and fulfil her potential.

We discuss her brother in law’s Nebbia Works' recent installation at V&A, a self-supporting pavilion from simple aluminium sheets as part of the London Design Festival to highlight the material's sustainable potential. We learn about Sound Advice is a platform exploring spatial inequality. Sound Advice is co-hosted by Pooja Agrawal and Joseph Henry, urbanists who met working at the Greater London Authority. They share their interests for fighting inequality both in the built environment and in the sector.

Follow @WeeMissBea on Instagram. Aisling's Bafta award-winning TV show 'This Way Up' Series 1 and 2 is available to stream now on All 4 https://www.channel4.com/programmes/this-way-up. Her new movie 'Home Sweet Home Alone' is also OUT NOW just in time for the holidays!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Jenna Gribbon

Talk Art RETURNS for Season 12!! Yes, TWELVE!!! Thanks for listening. We've recorded over 160 episodes so far and yet this new season still feels like the best yet!!!!

For the first episode, we meet American artist Jenna Gribbon at her solo exhibition titled 'Light Holding', her first show for Massimo De Carlo gallery. Her paintings question the feelings and implications of seeing and being seen through their exploration of performative, constructed and real intimacy. We discuss Agnes Varda, Manet, queerness, painting, intimate portraits, Mary Cassatt, Athens (Georgia), Mackenzie Scott (Torres) and much more!

Jenna's London solo exhibition 'Light Holding' is now open at Massimo De Carlo on South Audley Street, and runs until 26th February 2022. Free entry!

Jenna Gribbon’s paintings draw from memory, art history, and contemporary life. Her syncretic canvases draw on several centuries of painting: figures disporting themselves in a sylvan setting recall Fragonard’s fêtes galantes; an interiors swiftly brushed-on walls evoke the cursory backgrounds of Mary Cassatt; gently distorted architectural features summon the laissez-faire depictions of Karen Kilimnik. Sampling freely from various representational techniques and movements, Jenna Gribbon’s paint handling swerves from the virtuosic to the intentionally slapdash; fast, impressionistic strokes often about minutely illustrated details, highlighting the artist’s interest in collapsing numerous pictorial strategies into a single canvas. Jenna Gribbon was recently featured on the cover of Purple Magazine. She has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville; and the Kurpfalzicches Museum, Heidelberg, and at the Frick Museum (upcoming).

Jenna Gribbon (b.1978, Knoxville, Tennessee) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, US. Special thanks to Francesca, Lara at Massimo De Carlo gallery. Follow @JennaGribbon on Instagram and her galleries @MassimoDeCarloGallery and @FredericksAndFreiser Visit: https://www.massimodecarlo.com/ and https://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.