Category: Artist
Nationality: American
Last Year: 11

Who could fail to be surprised when watching Gus Van Sant’s tear-jerker Milk last year to find Jeff Koons sagely offering Sean Penn (as Harvey Milk) a bit of advice towards the beginning of his political career? What rendered the scene surreal was not so much the incongruity of artistic intentions (Gus Van Sant and Koons?) as the hitherto unconsidered possibility of one of the most photographed faces in contemporary art successfully playing someone else. I say ‘successfully’ because any lingering doubts could only be dispelled by end credits. Did he do it… for the money? If one were to judge by his ‘performance at auction’, Koons is doing alright. His Moustache (2003), which this year featured in his first-ever institutional show in London, at the Serpentine, sold for £1.1 million at Christie’s in June. One doubts that a turn to the silver screen has anything to do with issues of cash flow.