Insight Scoop

Despite mumblings about art world cronyism, Jeff Koons has only chosen one of his own pieces, One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank, for his curatorial debut at the New Museum. Rather, he wanted to showcase the significant breadth of Dakis Joannou’s acquisitions—which have never before been seen in the US. Joannou, a Greek Cypriot industrialist, is a major collector of contemporary art. On over four floors more than 100 works—by heavyweights such as Richard Prince and Jenny Holzer as well as emerging talent like Nathalie Djurberg and Dan Colen—are displayed and arranged with Koons’s unusual perspective. According to the New Museum’s director, Lisa Phillips, the museum approached Koons partly because he isn’t bound by expected curator confines. “Koons is an artist with a very strong and independent vision,” she says. “His artistic license gave him permission to act in ways that push and challenge traditional curatorship.” Skin Fruit also sees Koons join the rarified ranks of Manet, Warhol and Duchamp, all of whom organized seminal shows of others’ work in their time, and whose company Koons is no doubt happy to keep.