TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Angry Ukrainians say they've seen Koons's 'Ballerina' before
Change Size
This file photo taken on May 12, 2017 shows THE public art project by artist Jeff Koons "Seated Ballerina" in Rockefeller Center in New York City. The American artist Jeff Koons, the world's most expensive living artist, unveiled in New York on May 25 a huge inflatable sculpture depicting a seated dancer as a tribute to the month of missing children. "Seated Ballerina" is the name of this new 14-meter-high piece, perched high above the statue of Hercules on the Rockefeller Center in the heart of Manhattan. (AFP/Mike Coppola)
U
krainians took to the internet Thursday to lambaste star US artist Jeff Koons over his latest New York installation, a huge sculpture that appears remarkably similar to a work by a Ukrainian artist who died in 1993.
Koons has said his 14-metre (45-foot) -high inflatable "Seated Ballerina", installed this month above the statue of Hercules at Rockefeller Center, was inspired by a small Russian porcelain figurine from the end of the 19th century.
But many Ukrainians are crying foul, calling it a ripoff of "The Ballerina Lenochka", a porcelain statuette by Oksana Zhnikrup (1931-1993).
A spokeswoman for Koons, Lauran Rothstein, told AFP in an email that "We are aware of Oksana Zhnikrup's work and have a license to use it for Mr. Koons's work."
Read also: 'Mixed Feelings': Art breeding ground
That apparently did little to calm Ukrainian tempers against the neo-pop artist.
"I hope that he has noted the source of his inspiration. If he forgot to do so, I advise the Ukrainian government to file a case," Ukrainian artist Oleksandr Roitburd said in a Facebook post.
"America will be surprised to see that we don't have just corruption and war, but also art," he said.
Koons has been accused of plagiarism before: In March he was ordered to pay a fine over his "Naked" sculpture, which was deemed a "counterfeit" of a French photograph.
Before that, he had been accused three times of copying works, and convicted twice.
