Displaying items by tag: rockefeller center

In early May, Christie's invited a group of 18 new collectors from China to visit New York. The auction house escorted the guests on guided tours through the Museum of Modern Art, arranged VIP tickets to a local art fair and threw a lavish dinner in the Rockefeller Center ballroom of Christie's. Auctioneers also reserved two discreet skyboxes overlooking the house's saleroom so the group could watch its major spring sales of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art.

Christie's efforts paid off: During its May 13 contemporary art sale, members of the group placed bids on at least half the top 10 priciest pieces in what became an historic, $745 million auction.

On June 25, Jeff Koons’s massive, flowering sculpture “Split-Rocker” will go on view at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. Weighing in at 150 tons and standing 37 feet tall, the sculpture features two halves -- one based on a toy pony belonging to one of Koons’s sons, and the other based on a toy dinosaur. The two pieces come together to form the head of a giant child’s rocker. The work will be covered in over 50,000 living plants, including petunias, begonias, impatiens, geraniums, and marigolds.

Backed by Gagosian Gallery, which represents Koons, and organized by the Public Art Fund and real estate company Tishman Speyer, the installation will coincide with the opening of a Koons retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art on June 27. Best known for his reproductions of banal objects, Koons has never been the subject of a retrospective surveying the full scope of his career. The exhibition at the Whitney will present more than 120 objects dating from 1978 to the present, making it the most comprehensive ever devoted to the artist’s groundbreaking oeuvre.

Over the years Rockefeller Center has hosted a number of important art installations including Jeff Koons’ (b. 1955) hulking terrier puppy made out of 43 feet worth of flowering plants (2000); Louise Bourgeois’ (1911-2010) Maman and Spiders (2001), which featured the French artist’s famous arachnid creatures; and Takashi Murakami’s (b. 1963) Reversed Double Helix (2003, which included a 30-foot-tall Buddha-like figure, two giant floating balloons, and a forest of mushroom seating.

The impressive public art displays were an integral part of Rockefeller Center until the project was put on hold in 2008 due to the American economy’s dismal state. At the time, the owners of Rockefeller Center were working on a number of major interior restoration projects and felt that spending money on public art during such a stringent time was unwise.

As the economy and public morale slowly regain their footing, Rockefeller Center has decided to re-launch its public art project. With assistance from the Public Art Fund, the first installation will feature nine human-shaped sculptures by the Swiss-born, New York-based artist Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964). The sculptures stand between 16 and 20 feet tall and are made from bluestone that was excavated from a quarry in Pennsylvania. Much of the stone that makes up Rockefeller Center’s sidewalks came from the same region.

Rondinone’s Human Nature will be on view April 23 through June 7, 2013.