Paris is an artful capital that has now welcomed a work of modest if costly kitsch to honor victims of terrorism.
The sculpture by American artist Jeff Koons is intended as “a symbol of remembrance and support” from the American people to the people of Paris and more largely France in memory of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015.
It’s comprised of a well-manicured Caucasian hand holding eleven marshmallow-like tulips, with the twelfth representing through its absence victims of the attacks.
Standing 41 feet high, including its base of limestone quarried from the Paris region, the polychrome bronze, stainless steel and aluminum Bouquet of Tulips is sufficiently hidden behind the Petit Palais in the gardens of the Champs-Elysées to be ignored yet colorful enough to be photogenic.
Funded through private donations in collaboration with the Fonds pour Paris – Paris Foundation for placement on public space, the original price tag of 3.5 million euros was surpassed.
As Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo noted in her speech, Parisians love a good debate about placing a new work of art or architecture in a public space. She failed to note that honoring victims of terrorism with eleven Koons tulips is too much like honoring victims of famine with a statue of Ronald McDonald with one French fry missing.
Also speaking at the inauguration were Jeanne d’Hauteserre, mayor of the 8th arrondissement, which covers the Champs-Elysées; Koons; Jane Hartley, U.S. Ambassador to France from 2014 to 2017, who initiated the project, and Jamie McCourt, current U.S. Ambassador to France.
Ambassador McCourt, a Trump appointee, won the battle of the blonde ambassadors by reading her text in well-spoken French, whereas former ambassador Hartley, an Obama appointee, smiled her way through a text in English despite having lived in Paris for 2½ years, professing this her favorite city (“don’t tell my friends in New York”), and practically calling Mayor Hidalgo her BFF. Score one for the current ambassador, though one can’t imagine a Trump appointee raising funds in the name of French-American friendship, so take that back.
Nevertheless, while the work of American ambassadors around the world is in English and we can’t expect them to be fluent in the language of their host country, you’d think that after a couple of years with her BFF in Paris Hartley would have been able to fake her way in the language of Lafayette enough to read a 3-minute fluff speech of the kind that she gave dozens of times during her tenure.
No one expected Koons to speak French—and he doesn’t. But he does see himself in line with Picasso, Monet, Boucher and Fragonard in their use of flowers in art. Art historians take note.
Text and photos © 2019, Gary Lee Kraut.