Billionaire's Yacht "Guilty" , the Island of Hydra & Michael Jackson in Art

Four years ago today, on March 23, 2014, I republished this essay about modern art and a very strange yacht I saw on the island of Hydra--a  story I originally posted in 2010, thus scooping The New York Times by four years.

Today's (March 23, 2014) issue of the New York Times Style Magazine--Travel--has a cover story on the Island of Hydra, Greece, and especially the famous and eccentric yacht of Dakis Joannou, who is described by the Times as a "billionaire Greek art collector" and "one of the most famous men in this part of the Aegean".

Just wanted to point out that, if you are a "Rolling Crone" reader, you read all about this wild and crazy yacht and its owner nearly four years ago on this blog.  And, unlike the Times' author of  "Beyond the Sea",  Lawrence Osborne, I got the lead on the yacht and its owner from one of the donkey drivers on Hydra's harbor, who wait around to carry visitors' suitcases up the hill because there are no motorized vehicles on the island.

Hydra is one of our favorite islands, which we visit nearly every year--On one visit we found ourselves talking to a couple who turned out to be Leonard Cohen's former in-laws!

In case you missed the original post on the yacht "Guilty" on July 5, 2010, I'm re-posting it below.

Is it a Yacht or a Floating Museum?

When we were on the Greek island of Hydra recently, I saw a very peculiar-looking yacht dock in the harbor. I had never seen a boat of that shape and certainly not one decorated with what seemed to be pop art. Painted across the stern was the name “Guilty.” I thought it might be the ill-gotten prize of some hedge-fund manager who had been convicted of a white-collar crime, a la Bernie Madoff.

So I took some photos of the mysterious yacht and then asked the nearest donkey driver whose it was. (Those donkey drivers know everything because they stand around the harbor all day waiting for people to hire them to move suitcases and baggage up the hill to their hotel or destination. There are no vehicles on Hydra, only donkeys.)

He told me that the yacht belonged to a very rich Greek who owned two side- by-side houses up above the harbor. But he didn’t know his name.

When I walked back to the Hotel Leto, I typed the words “yacht” and “Guilty” into Google and learned that the peculiar sea craft belonged to a very influential Greek art collector named Dakis Ioannou (or “Joannou” – it depends on how you translate the Greek alphabet.)

I also learned that he had launched the yacht two years earlier, in Athens, at a party attended by the most important art dealers and contemporary artists of the day. The exterior of the yacht had been decorated by Ioannou’s friend, the artist Jeff Koons.

I wrote about Koons’ life-sized statue of Michael Jackson and his chimp Bubbles a year ago, in a posting about how Michael Jackson’s death had inflated the price of Michael Jackson art.

I quoted from a New York Times article about Koons: ““His 1988 sculpture of Mr. Jackson with Bubbles was decorated with gold metallic paint and brought $5.6 million when it sold at Sotheby’s in New York in 2001. Larry Gagosian, the New York dealer who represents Mr. Koons, said on Wednesday that if one from the edition (he made three along with an artist’s proof) was to come up for sale now, it could make more than $20 million. ‘And that’s conservative,’ he added.”

Ioannou, who reportedly made his money in construction, is an extremely influential collector of works of modern art. I believe he owns 20 of Koons’ super-expensive sculptures. The masterpieces he chooses are often macabre and gory He said at the launching of his yacht, “ “These are dark times. The artists recognize that. We should, too.”

Although the exterior of the ship looks like a Roy Lichtenstein cartoon-painting, the Koons told Art Forum that it was based on a World War I camouflage pattern designed to confuse rather than hide.

The magazine reported: “The dizzying, chromatic graphics did make the unusually jutting planes of the ship, designed by architect Ivana Porfiri, hard to make out on the water. The touchy-feely interior was all mirror, silver leather, and dyed materials. ‘Isn’t it wonderful how you just want to touch everything on board?’ Koons asked, smiling. … The decor also included a lot of art… including wall paintings by David Shrigley, another by Albenda, and Guilty, an unusual text painting by Sarah Morris bought because, well, Joannou said, “I had to.” The yacht already had the name. “Guilty,” he said. “It just seemed right.”

Here is a photograph of the piece which now lives in the yacht along with a lot of other expensive works from his collection.

I have to say that, unlike Ioannou, I was not struck by an irresistible urge to buy this painting when I saw it—but then I really don’t understand much of the art that is currently fashionable.

After leaving Hydra, I picked up an airline magazine—I think it was on an Aegean plane—and learned that at the same moment, a collection of Ioannou’s art was being shown in New York at the New Museum. The exhibit was called “Skin Fruit” and was curated by—guess who?-- Jeff Koons. It included 100 works by “50 world-famous artists” from Ioannou’s private collection. According to the magazine, “It’s an exciting exploration of archetype symbols of genesis, evolution and human sexuality. …The exhibition tells the story of humanity’s beginnings. It’s like a fantastic universe imagined by Stanley Kubrick, Tim Burton and David Lynch, filled with twin towers of white chocolate, warped playground swings, androids and demons. Murals, paintings, installations, performance pieces, 3D pieces and live dramatized scenes of human passion make up a stunning display.”

Unfortunately, the exhibit in New York finished on June 20, so I won’t be able to see all the drama, but in the meantime I and the donkeys of Hydra enjoyed our accidental encounter with Mr. Ioannou’s yacht-as-modern art.

Last Chance: Jeff Koons’ Show and the Whitney Museum

The hot art exhibit of the summer in New York— “Jeff Koons: A Retrospective”--is about to close on Sunday, Oct. 19, and that will also be the end of the Whitney Museum as we know it. The Whitney will move into its new building in the meatpacking district and leave the iconic Breuer-designed building at Madison and 75th to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to use as a satellite space starting in the spring of 2016.

I’d already seen Jeff Koons’ gigantic, flower-covered “Split Rocker” at Rockefeller Center.  I even knew that the four-story-high structure was meant to represent a toy that had half the head of a rocking horse and half the head of a dinosaur. But I hadn’t been able to make it to Koons’ show at the Whitney until September 10th, when I finally saw it with some friends who had come all the way from Minnesota. 

I was familiar with Koons’ art— I’d written, at the time of Michael Jackson’s death, about Koons’ sculpture of Michael with his chimpanzee Bubbles, which sold for  $5.6 million in 2001 but would sell for much more after the death.

I saw one of Koons’ balloon dogs on the roof of the Met some years ago. (It’s made out of stainless steel, but it looks so much like a balloon that you really, really want to touch it to make sure.)  Last year the orange-tinted balloon dog sold for more than $58 million dollars, making it the highest price ever for a living artist.

And Jeff Koons, fifty nine, is really living.  I was aware that one room in the show was devoted to “Made in Heaven”-- giant-sized paintings of Koons having sex with his ex-wife, the Hungarian-Italian porn star Ilona Staller, known as “La Cicciolina”, who, when their brief marriage was over, took their son Ludwig back to Italy, where she has also served as a member of Parliament.  A long and painful custody trial ensued and Koons’ bitterness at losing his son is often echoed in his art (or is it just a longing for Koons own boyhood?)  Looking at his art, you realize the man, like Peter Pan, never grew up.

The review of the Whitney show in the New Yorker rightly called Koons “The most original, controversial, and expensive American artist of the past three and a half decades.”

There are plenty of critics who hate Koons’ work, and a lot of their comments are apt, funny and understandable. But I was won over by the humor and whimsy of his latest sculptures and paintings, which seem to have a spirit of fun and fantasy while at the same time mocking the kitsch and the commercialism of the things that he is parodying.  

The best thing about seeing Koons’ exhibit at the Whitney—for me anyway—was watching the visitors (and even the guards) interacting with the art.

Koons’ newest, and I think funniest, piece of sculpture is the gigantic “Play-Doh” which The New York Times critic  Roberta Smith  called “a new, almost certain masterpiece whose sculptural enlargement of a rainbow pile of radiant chunks captures exactly the matte textures of the real thing, but also evokes paint, dessert and psychedelic poop.” 

This pile of Play-Doh is dated 1994-2014.  He worked on it for 20 years! Mr. Koons, says the NYT critic, “spends much money and often ends up inventing new techniques to get exactly what he wants in both his sculptures and his paintings, which are made by scores of highly skilled artists whom he closely supervises.”

This is "Hulk (Organ) 2004-2014" and the organ really works

 

It was recently announced that, because the Koons retrospective at the Whitney is so popular—more than 250,000 people have seen it, making it among the highest attended shows in the museum’s history—that the director of the Whitney has decided to stage a 36-hour marathon, keeping the Whitney open from 11 a.m. Saturday, October 18 through 11 pm. Sunday Oct. 19. 

"Dog Pool (Panties) 2003

If you’re anywhere near Manhattan, I suggest you go to the Whitney marathon and buy a copy of the catalog.  There will be special activities, the bookstore and restaurant will stay open all night and, according to The Times, the director  "confided that Mr. Koons may make an appearance in the dead of night and be on hand to sign catalogs.”  (Maybe someday his signed catalogs will go for big money like his art!)

But if you can’t make it to the marathon, here are some scenes of what you missed—New Yorkers and art lovers interacting with and trying to figure out Jeff Koons’ very expensive art.

"Balloon Venus"

Only in New York--A Photo Essay

On a recent visit to Manhattan I wandered around like the tourist that I am, clutching my camera to record sights and sites that native New Yorkers don't even notice as they hurry about their daily chores.  Nothing startles New Yorkers, whether it's break dancers on the subway, dog-sized rats in Central Park or naked cowboys and cowgirls in Times Square, but I, accustomed to life in a quiet New England village, kept on snapping photos and muttering, "Only in New York!"

Where else can you enjoy the sunset and dinner on your roof, 27 stories above the pavement...

....or eat on a barge in the Hudson River that never leaves the dock. (It's called The Frying Pan, at 26th Street and the Hudson.)

....or you can just have organic hamburgers delivered from the nearest Bareburger.

Granddaughter Amalia samples all the free fun in Manhattan's parks and playgrounds.  Here she is driving a train at the Little Engine Playground at Riverside Drive and West 67th Street. (And afterwards we always walk over to "Pier i"  for outdoor dining on the water.)

 She's tried fishing at the Harlem Meer in Central Park on the East Side at 109th Street. (It's all catch and release and you can rent the fishing poles and get instructions and free bait.)

And in the summer heat, nearly every playground in Manhattan has sprinklers and various kinds of water play.

On my recent visit, Amalia and I went to Art Farm at East 91st Street between York and First where  children learn about nature, animals and how to care for the planet.   Where else would you meet a giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroach?

Some of the children were willing to touch the creature, but most of the adults retreated to watch from a distance.

Amalia was more eager to pet the rabbits, hens and a new little guinea pig.

Wandering around by myself, I  noticed near Times Square one of the soon-to-be illegal Elmos who harass tourists and ask for money.

I marveled at the ever-present dog walkers.  How do they keep all those dogs from fighting with each other?  Or breaking away from the pack?

And I noticed this truck delivering Cannabis Energy Drink to the local Korean Deli.  I wonder what they put in that drink?

Art is everywhere in Manhattan, and most people never even notice it.

I spied faces in the architecture

Fire escape shadows on uninhabited buildings...

Split-Rocker is a giant flower-covered sculpture by Jeff Koons which dominates Rockefeller Plaza and coincides with the blockbuster Koons show at the Whitney Museum.

Even this graffiti-covered truck, which we encountered as we drove toward the Triboro Bridge on our way home, qualifies as art in my opinion...one of the many odd treasures you can find only in New York, the greatest city in the world.

Amalia’s Egg-straordinary Manhattan Adventure

Last week I was in Manhattan, where Spring is in full bloom (not like here in Massachusetts), and I got to tag along after granddaughter Amalia, 2 ½, to see how a preschooler who lives on the Upper East Side fills her days.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays she has yoga at a nearby store called Sprout, with teachers Rebecca and Samara.

It includes headstands, tree pose while balancing, and, her favorite-- kicking at bubbles.  There are stories and songs too.

We went to Central Park every day, stopping to admire the gardens in front of some brownstones.

In Central Park the daffodils and lots of other flowers were in bloom.

Some days the playground was crowded.  Amalia had new sand toys for building castles and hiding treasures.  She’s getting better at sharing.

Other days, especially in the late afternoon, we had the playground to ourselves.

We ate with Mommy at some of Amalia’s favorite restaurants, including Big Daddy’s Diner.

And had breakfast with Uncle Bob and Aunt Robin at Alice’s Teacup, featuring Amalia’s new favorite food—pancakes.

Everywhere we went we encountered giant eggs decorated by artists.  There are nearly 300 of them “hidden” around Manhattan and on April 22 they will be sold at a Grand Auction. The bids are already coming in—each egg starts at $500 and the egg by Jeff Koons (we didn’t see it) has already hit $360,000.  

The money will be used for art education for New York City’s children and to aid Asia’s endangered elephants.  And weekly prizes of jeweled egg pendants are being given away.  If you want to know more, check at thebigegghunt.org/auction.

When we went into the Metropolitan Museum on Friday afternoon, we found three more giant eggs.

We were coming for dinner at the Petrie Court Café, which Amalia likes because she can run around and look at things, but first she wanted to show me the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing.

Especially her beloved alligator.

And she had to throw some pennies into the reflecting pool to make wishes.

Then we walked through the American Wing to get to the Café.

Amalia discovered that she could make a hat out of her napkin.

She had salmon and noodles and strawberry ice cream for dessert at the end of an exciting day, but sometimes, after her adventures, Amalia has to take a power nap on the way home.