Estimated to become one of the most valuable pieces ever created by leading artist Jeff Koons, “Pluto & Proserpina” is making its debut at the Whitney Museum in New York City.
The unique artwork will then embark on a tour to the world’s top museums before permanently residing at Oceana Bal Harbour, an ultra-luxury condominium in the Miami area scheduled to be completed in 2016.
This is the first time a world-class work of art owned by residents of a development project is on loan for a world tour.
“Pluto & Proserpina” is a larger-than-life sculpture purchased by billionaire real estate magnate and MALBA museum-founder Eduardo Costantini for his art-themed Oceana Bal Harbour condominium.
Costantini is loaning the sculpture to the Whitney Museum for a retrospective exhibit of Koons’s work, the first time the museum has filled the building with one artist’s work.
“Pluto & Proserpina” will then travel to the Pompidou in Paris and the Guggenheim in Bilbao before permanently residing at Oceana Bal Harbour in 2016.
“Pluto & Proserpina will be enjoyed by millions of people at first-class museums all over the world, only to come back home to the Oceana Bal Harbour residents who will get to call it their own,” said Costantini, the founder of Argentina-based real estate development company Consultatio.
“Jeff Koons was the natural choice to represent our project. He’s a global artist and the residents of Oceana Bal Harbour are global citizens who are coming from all corners of the world,” he added.
Residents of the roughly 240-unit development, priced from $3 to $30 million, will share sole ownership of the piece and will be credited in the exhibit.
The residents will also share ownership of another Koons piece, the yet-to-be-completed “Ballerina”, which will first travel to Costantini’s MALBA museum in May 2015, then to the renowned Bal Harbour Shops for Miami’s 2015 Art Basel.
Both pieces are part of Jeff Koons Antiquity series and will be permanently displayed in the beachside gardens and the reflecting pool that connects the building’s ocean and bay facades.
They will join 10 other museum-worthy pieces in the lobby, which will be an integral part of the residents’ personal art collection.