Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The one that got away

Every collector you meet has a one-that-got-away story. The best one we've heard was from a couple of LA collectors we met via Giovanni Intra. They had a major collection of  Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work but the work that haunted them was one by Jeff Koons.

The story goes that in the 1980s they had walked into a Jeff Koons exhibition in New York and been transfixed by a stainless steel rabbit. “We both were ready to buy it but for that particular exhibition Koons had more than doubled his prices so we thought we should give it a bit of thought. We were almost back to our hotel when we looked at one another and said, 'This is crazy, we have to buy it’. On the way back to the gallery we met the director of one of the big art museums. ‘Where are you off to?’ he asked us. ‘To the Koons' show,’ we told him. ‘Don’t waste your time. It’s just rubbish. Expensive rubbish,’ he said. And we lost our nerve, turned around and went home.”

You can read some more hunt and miss stories here.