Koons - Monkey Train

I won't be riding my new Koons skateboards anytime soon. In fact, they'll likely stay in the plastic wrapper and maybe even get displayed on the wall at some point. Is that so wrong? In a perfect world, these skateboards would introduce a group of people to contemporary art who might find it inaccessible otherwise. Fits with my professed ideal that everyone should have art in their life in some form. Instead, the boards are being sold on Ebay by clever speculators to people like me who horde them away, perhaps for a rainy day. If you think I'm crazy, note: Koons' little blue porcelain balloon dogs first sold for $400 and am now seeing them on Ebay for over $4,000!

More about Jeff Koons.

From the New York Times
September 6, 2006
By Alex Hawgood

The Zone; Now Boarding | Art for Dude's Sake

He's collaborated with everyone from a porn star to Hugo Boss, so it's no surprise that the artist Jeff Koons has teamed up with the street label Supreme to create limited-edition skateboards that bridge the halfpipe between curators and skate rats. But these decks, available at Supreme's New York and Los Angeles stores, are made to be ridden, not hung on the wall. ''The whole appeal,'' says James Jebbia, the owner of Supreme, ''is to introduce Koons's work into our world, but in a real way.'' Offered in three styles, and one of them may just get you on board.