Christie’s is looking for 5x appreciation on Jeff Koons’s Jim Beam train over 10 years. A version of this work sold in 2004 at Christie’s (pictured) for $5.4m. Next month, they’re going back to the well with hopes of making $25m:
Stefan Edlis, a celebrated Chicago collector and retired plastics executive, is also parting with a valuable Koons sculpture next month. On May 13, Christie’s is selling “Jim Beam J. B. Turner Train,” a 1986 stainless-steel train nine and a half feet long filled with bourbon. Mr. Koons saw a plastic and porcelain version of the train in the window of a liquor store and cast it in steel. The train was part of “Luxury and Degradation,” an exhibition at International With Monument Gallery in SoHo that examined shallowness, excess and the dangers of luxury in the high-flying 1980s.
An Auctioneer Comes Back to the Business (NYTimes.com)
