Hasta La Ideas

Jeff Koons probably isn’t making any new friends this week due to some recent press (and this time not just with overly-dramatic French people with balloons). The artist (but more than likely, his legal team acting for him) recently issued a cease-and-desist letter to the small San Francisco store and gallery, Park Life, for selling a set of bookends that look similar to one of the artist’s most famous pieces, the large, metallic “Balloon Dog.” While it’s not hard to see that the two look alike, it also wouldn’t be difficult to make a balloon dog yourself and make it look a lot like a Koons’ original in roughly ten seconds flat. The matter is made all the worse due to a) the store just bought the bookends from a distributor in Canada called imm Life, and b) Koons has a history of borrowing a bit himself. After the story received the letter, they apparently pulled the dogs off their shelves, with a note on their blog, “So going forward, just so you know; Jeff Koons owns all likenesses of balloon dogs.” However, now just a few days later, it appears that they’ve decided to try their luck, preparing to put the now-controversial objects back on the shelf, with the note “Back in Stock Soon! Much to the dismay of Jeff Koons and Lawyers. Call us.”

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