Jeff Koons will not be rushed — not even if you’ve paid him $13 million.
That’s the message the balloon animal-sculptor’s art dealer, Larry Gagosian, has for a hedge funder who coughed up the whopping sum for three works.
Buyer Steven Tananbaum says he’s been waiting since 2013 and in April the head of the $24 billion GoldenTree Asset Management fund sued Gagosian and Koons in Manhattan Supreme Court.
But Gagosian says Tananbaum should have expected the delays.
Tananbaum is a “highly sophisticated art collector” who knew Koons’ reputation as “a perfectionist who often takes years to make” pieces, Gagosian argues in response to Tananbaum’s suit.
“Tananbaum is a prominent hedge fund manager, a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, and a sophisticated art collector who regularly invests in exclusive works of fine art,” Gagosian’s attorney Matthew Dontzin notes in court papers.
“Mr. Tananbaum was being advised by one of the world’s leading art advisors and fully understood that (i) Mr. Koons is a perfectionist who often takes years to make each sculpture; (ii) Mr. Koons provides only estimated completion dates for the sculptures; and (iii) those estimated dates are often extended by multiple years,” Dontzin adds in the motion to dismiss the suit.
Tananbaum first signed a purchase agreement for an 8.5-foot-by-5.4-foot magenta, polished steel sculpture called “Balloon Venus” in September 2013. He put a $6.4 million deposit on the piece for an expected completion date of December 2015, his suit says.
Tananbaum’s also been waiting since 2016 for two other pieces — titled “Eros” and “Diana”– worth a combined $14.5 million. He’s paid $6.65 million toward the total cost.
His suit also accused Koons and Gagosian of running a “Ponzi scheme” by using “new money to “pay old obligations.”
The duo bleed “collectors of deposits and payments by drawing on their funding without supplying a product in exchange,” Tananbaum charges in court papers.
The sculptor and his dealer enjoy one of the most successful relationships in the art world.
Koons’ “Balloon Dog” sold for a record $58 million at Christie’s in 2013 and Gagosian’s 16 galleries yield a reported $1 billion in annual sales.
Tananbaum’s attorney Shannon Rose Selden said, “While good art takes time, Gagosian took millions in payment and in return has delivered nothing but years of unexplained delay. Their ‘pay now-deliver someday’ approach is bad for everyone who buys art, and Mr. Tananbaum is determined to enforce the rules that prohibit it.”