In the previous post we looked at a ceramic piece that turned into a symbol of resilience in Ukraine. In that post we mentioned the National Folk Decorative Art Museum in Kyiv. The museum also preserves the works of ceramicist Oksana Zhnikrup (1931-1993). The name may ring a bell with contemporary art fans since, in 2017, two ceramic works by the Ukrainian artist were at the centre of a diatribe involving American artist Jeff Koons.
In May 2017 Jeff Koons installed a 14 metre-tall inflatable sculpture entitled "Seated Ballerina" at New York's Rockefeller Centre. The sculpture portrayed a blonde ballerina in a blue tutu sitting on a stool and adjusting her ballet shoes.
Previous to this work, Koons did a 45cm tall version of the same ballerina in polychrome wood (that looks a bit like a Disney Princess...) and 2m tall mirror-polished stainless steel version. The monumental version of the ballerina represented, according to the artist, almost a Venus, a work about beauty, contemplation, prosperity and hope. Yet it wasn't an original work by Koons.
The original publicity material for "Seated Ballerina" stated that the work was inspired by a porcelain figure "found at a Russian factory at the turn of the 20th century", but Koons never mentioned that the starting point was a porcelain statuette entitled "Ballerina Lenochka" by Oksana Zhnikrup.
It wasn't a case of a copyright infringement, though, as Koons claimed he had obtained since 2010 the official permission to use two works by Zhnikrup, "Ballerinas before the performance" (1961) and "Ballerina Lenochka" (1974) and, according to his studio's statements, he also paid royalties. What do we know about Oksana Zhnikrup?
Born in 1931 in the city of Chita in Transbaikalia, Zhnikrup studied at the Odessa Art School Grekov, and then worked in the early '50s at the Baranovsky porcelain factory.
In 1955, Oksana Zhnikrup moved to Kyiv: here she worked at the Kyiv Experimental Ceramic and Art Factory (KEKHZ; she worked there till 1989). The Kyiv plant was a sort of creative laboratory, producing original porcelain pieces and making sketches for many porcelain factories in Ukraine.
At the plant, Zhnikrup created more than a hundred original works, collaborating also with her husband, artist Vladislav Shcherbyna (the leading and later the main artist of the factory), and with her friend Olga Rapay. "Ballerina Lenochka" was produced by the assembly line at the KEKHZ (the factory closed in 2006).
Zhnikrup's style, characterised by lightness and plasticity, became popular as the artist tried to abandon the usual vision of women presented by socialist realism.
While the artist created statues dedicated to professions ("Chemist", "Doctor", "Teacher" and so on), Zhnikrup also focused on other subjects, at times more feminine such as skaters, ballerinas and princesses. Her pieces looked sophisticated and elegant thanks to their smooth lines, the result of a high level of craftsmanship.
Zhnikrup's mother was a theatre actress and this must have reflected in some of her pieces that, inspired by the world of the theatre, ballet (dances of different people from the world were another inspiration for the ceramicist) and the circus, were rich in gesture and beautifully decorated.
At the end of the '50s, Zhnikrup became well known when a small porcelain statuette-toy, "Matryoshka", caused a stir at the international exhibition in Marseille, France; while her 1964 sculpture "Sad Girl" took second place in the competition of porcelain products based on the works of Ukrainian poet, writer, artist and ethnographer Taras Shevchenko. Between 1964-1965, the artist also represented Ukraine at five international exhibitions and fairs in Greece, Canada, Germany, USA and Yugoslavia.
Zhnikrup died in 1993, but her works continued to be replicated and the artist remains the queen of Ukrainian "white gold", that is small porcelain sculpture.
When Jeff Koons' deal was done probably museum curators hoped that in this way the ceramicist's works would have become more known in the rest of the world. Yet for years Zhnikrup's ballerinas were constantly reinvented and sold by Jeff Koons without any mention of the actual source.
There are quite a few editions of the statues Koons replicated from Zhnikrup: the smaller ones in polychrome wood are often part of private collections, while the largest ones in mirror-polished stainless steel are often displayed in museum installations ("Seated Ballerina" also appeared last year at an exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy).
It is not rare to actually bump into the smaller versions of the ballerinas at art auctions. A while back Sotheby's sold a statuette of the "Seated Ballerina" for around $44,000, while the polychrome wood ballerinas fetched $50,400 (if you think that's a lot for a statuette, keep in mind that Koons is deemed "The World's Most Expensive Artist"...) at Sotheby's Contemporary Curated Sale in March 2022.
We do not know the exact details of Jeff Koons' agreement, but it would have been more honest to maybe advertise the pieces as made by "Jeff Koons after Oksana Zhnikrup". Koons received a lot of admiration for his "Seated Ballerina" and it is interesting to note how in other works in which he borrowed from other artists, such as his "Gazing Ball" series that incorporates copies of works by Théodore Géricault, Peter Paul Rubens and Titian (and that inspired his collaboration with Louis Vuitton), Koons always acknowledged the source. In the case of the ballerinas, though, Oksana Zhnikrup remained unmentioned.
It is very annoying seeing a woman's work being appropriated and her name erased to allow a male artist to become richer and more famous. The solution? Bringing back Oksana Zhnikrup's name in Koons' works.
As the war continues in Ukraine, Koons should maybe do special versions of the statuettes and auction them, donating profits to museums or art/cultural institutions in Ukraine. Besides, donating the giant inflatable ballerina to Ukraine, so that it could be displayed one day in those cities heavily bombed by the Russian army, would also be very apt. As stated above, Koons considered his inflatable "Seated Ballerina" on display in New York as a symbol of beauty, contemplation, prosperity and hope, exactly what Ukraine needs at the moment.
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