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Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons meets French minister over sculpture dispute

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf
Jeff Koons
A somewhat smaller Jeff Koons work, ‘Tulip Balloons,’ is permanently installed outside Guggenheim museum Bilbao. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

PARIS (AP) – American artist Jeff Koons met with the French culture minister Francoise Nyssen on Tuesday amid a debate over a monumental sculpture he plans to offer Paris as a memorial to victims of the 2015 terror attacks.

Two dozen people from the worlds of French art and entertainment signed an open letter this month urging the city to refuse Koons’ Bouquet of Tulips, calling the project “shocking” and its creator too commercially driven.

Koons donated the design in 2016, but not the cost to produce or install the sculpture. It is expected to weigh 39.6 tons and stand more than 39 feet high.

The project’s direct and associated costs reportedly run to several million euros, some of which private sponsors are expected to pay.

The sculpture is intended for a museum hill with a view of the Eiffel tower.

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AP-WF-01-30-18 2129GMT

Jeff Koons