The bubble Fame
On 15 May 2001, in the New York rooms of Sotheby's, star auctioneer Tobias Meyer brought the hammer down on the final telephoned offer of $5.1 million for "Michael Jackson and Bubbles" by Jeff Koons. The sculpture is now in the possession of the Broad Arts Foundation, suggesting that it was, indeed, Eli Broad, who was on the other end of the phone eight years ago. Koons created "Michael Jackson and Bubbles" in 1988, when the singer was at the pinnacle of his career, but the golden roses strewn on the ground around the subject suggest that fame is very much a fleeting, fragile thing.
"In night go view the solemn stars, / Ever in majesty the same — / Creation's world's; how poor must seem / The mightest honors earth can name — / And most of all this strife / After the bubble, Fame!" Walt Whitman (1819-1892), The Winding-Up.
