State of the Art: This Bulbous Koons Hublot Is What We Deserve

In State of the Art, a column for Highsnobiety, Chris Erik Thomas untangles the crossover between fashion and art.

It doesn’t feel right to call Jeff Koons a real person. Like the artist’s famously glossy stainless-steel balloon sculptures, typically blown up to gargantuan dimensions, Koons feels as artificial as his signature work. That’s a compliment, given his lifelong obsession with self-mythologizing. As another superstar artist, Damien Hirst, told the New York Times: “Jeff invented himself to the point where it’s not even about whether you believe him or not. It’s just a new truth.”

Koons is the Camp King of Contemporary Art; a Willy Wonka-like figure, presiding over a factory’s worth of kitsch. There’s a treacly sweet quality to whatever he deigns to make, and I’ll admit that for much of my life I’ve reacted to all things Koons with revulsion and a bit of a toothache. 

But then… to my shock (and my colleagues' confusion), a new collaboration with the ultra-luxury watchmaker Hublot finally warmed me to Koons. 

Everything about the bulbous $25,100 Classic Fusion Balloon Dog timepiece should repel. The blue and red versions are rendered in garish shades not seen in the natural world; the tiny Balloon Dog hanging off the second hand is unapologetically kitsch. The watch face looks like a microwaved marshmallow.

It’s awful. It’s brilliant. It’s, more importantly, exactly the kind of gluttonously gaudy product that an artist like Koons should be making — for the exact kind of wealthy person who would be down bad for Koons’ art. With a price tag the size of one of my university student loans, the polished anodized aluminum watch literally exists in a different stratum. Koons and Hublot get that, which is exactly why it works. 

Call me crazy — and many might, given my defense of this linkup — but it’s far more satisfying to see an art-fashion merch drop that is unapologetically extravagant than one that waters down the artist in pursuit of mass-market appeal. Take a recent triple-serving of stale art-fashion merch drops, for example. 

There was the BAPE x Van Gogh Museum release of unimaginative floral-print sneakers and tacky toys; the simplistic cash grab of KAWS × UNIQLO T-shirts and sweatshirts; the baffling Nike x MoMA Air Rift 2 sneaker, in color combinations ill-suited for human eyes. Each was sinful in its own way, but together they showed exactly why the entire business of mashing artists (or even art museums) with fashion brands needs recalibration. 

Compare that with a Koons x Hublot timepiece so flashy and immodest that you could actually see Koons wearing it. This is less a Jeff Koons watch than wearable Koons art, which is exactly what this kind of crossover should be. What a concept. 

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