Hirst and Koons team up
May 19 2016
Video: BBC
Damien Hirst is a fan of Jeff Koons, and has for a long time collected his work. Now he has put them exhibition in his gallery in London. The above film by Newsnight for the BBC shows Koons seeing the exhibition for the first time.
Sitting there in suits, they come across as two slightly dull middle-aged blokes, the chat only vaguely more interesting than something you'd hear in a North London pub during half-time. Their manner is disarmingly straightforward, even if it is delivered in the sort of half-dreamy haze of people who once spent a lot of time on drugs. There is no guffy artspeak here. I admire - and indeed always have - the honesty and frankness of it all, when it comes from the artist. And the curious thing is, I suspect some might find it hard to accept that this is the real Koons and Hirst - two people whose simple dedication to their own creativity somehow built a platform onto which a thousand pseuds and speculators could project their own fantasies, a new language, and even a multi-billion dollar industry.
