The gift that Jeff Koons wants to donate to Paris is provoking a backlash towards the artist. At issue is the fact that the work, meant to commemorate recent terror attacks and evoke the Statue of Liberty required both fundraising and municipal expenditures. There’s also a number of questions about its location.

Today, Liberation published a letter signed by two dozen leading French intellectual figures rejecting the gift. In it, we can see the danger of Jeff Koons losing his credibility as an international artist as the group declared the work more “product placement” than art:

“A brilliant and inventive creator in the 1980s, Jeff Koons has since become the emblem of industrial art which is spectacular and speculative,” the letter states.

Here are a list of the signatories which include some prominent artists, gallerists and collectors:

Signatories: Olivier Assayas, filmmaker; Marie-Claude Beaud,Director of the New National Museum of Monaco; Marie-Laure Bernadac, Honorary General Curator; Christian Bernard, director of the Spring of September; Christian Boltanski, artist; Nicolas Bourriaud, director of Montpellier Contemporain; Emilie Cariou,MP (LREM) Vice-Chair of the Finance Committee; Stéphane Corréard, director of the Galeristes salon; Matali Crasset, industrial designer; Alexia Fabre, chief curator of Mac / Val; Estelle Francès,founder of the Fondation Francès; Alexandre Gady,president of sites and monuments; Antoine de Galbert , collector, founder of the Maison rouge; Catherine Grenier, Director of the Alberto-et-Annette-Giacometti Foundation; Marie-Laure Jousset,Honorary Chief Curator; Marin Karmitz, collector; Gaëlle Lauriot-Prévost , designer; Claire Le Restif, director of the contemporary art center Le Crédac; Gabrielle Maubrie, gallerist, founder of the association Galleries mode d’emploi; Frédéric Mitterrand, former Minister of Culture; Jean-Luc Moulène, artist;Tania Mouraud,artist; Pierre Oudart, director of the Marseille-Méditerranée College of Art and Design; Dominique Perrault, architect.

French resistance rises to ‘tulip’ gift from Jeff Koons (YahooNews)