Saturday, December 08, 2012

Champ chimp


While it’s true Legoflamb picked this story up and ran with it on Thursday, OTN remains the blog of record for animal art so here, if you caught it on LoL, it is again.
Turns out Bubbles (b.1983), the chimp that lived with Michael Jackson and the subject of Jeff Koons’s eponymous sculpture, has turned his own hand to art. This is the same chimpanzee that accompanied Jackson on his visit to the Mayor of Osaka during the Bad World tour and was allowed to join the two for tea. You can see Jackson and Bubbles doing the Moon Walk here.
Bubbles went to live with Jackson on the Neverland Ranch in 1988, the same year Jeff Koons made his famous porcelain Michael Jackson and Bubbles as part of his Banality series.In the early 2000s Bubbles became aggressive and was sent to an animal sanctuary eventually ending up in the Centre for great apes (CGA) in Florida where he  lives now.
In his old age (chimp years) Bubbles has taken up the brush and is making paintings one of which was sold at Art Basel Miami this week.
Images: Top, Michael Jackson with Bubbles and bottom, Bubbles painting