Louis Quatorze Heir Loses Suit But Wins Bizarre Notoriety

ArtInfo reports on Jeff Koons’s victory in a French court over an injunction from a descendant of the French king who was outraged to see Versailles defiled by Koons’s art.

De Bourbon-Parme argued in the administrative court of the district of Versailles last week that the Koons exhibition was a profanation of the life of his royal forefather and that it undermined basic human freedoms, most notably the respect due to the dead. A judge rejected the complaint, saying, “The existence of a right to live without the profanation of one’s ancestors and of a right to access knowledge of heritage without pornographic constraints does not constitute a fundamental freedom.”

Once you’ve stopped chuckling, think about this one a little. There’s a sublime symmetry between Koons as an artist and the Bourbon heir. Both are earnest and extreme, though somewhat in opposite directions.

Louis XIV Heir Loses Koons Suit (ArtInfo)