Jeff Koons Gives A Present To Paris – And Paris Is, Let’s Say, Ambivalent

The gift is a large sculpture – a hand holding a bouquet of the artist’s signature balloon tulips – in honor of the victims of the 2015 terrorist attacks. But it’s a problematic present: it’s too heavy for the site Koons wants, not everyone cares for it (one museum director says, “I think it will be much less kitsch in several years”), and the city is having trouble raising the required €3.5 million to have it made and installed. (Koons’s donation, you see, isn’t the completed work; it’s the concept.)