The series marked the frst instance Koons engaged with stainless steel in his practice, a watershed moment that would go on to inform the direction of his sculpture for decades to come. As visually enticing as gold or silver, but with a much sturdier composition, and more utilitarian function, stainless steel served Koons’s purpose perfectly—a blend of seemingly rich material that is, ultimately at best aspirational. Its high polish and resistance to corrosion would perfectly suit his later explorations in sculpture, as evidenced in his more recent monumental Celebration series. By casting his train in steel, Koons brings forth a range of allusions from historic nostalgia to notions of opulence. Koons brilliantly both circumvents and emphasizes the quaint nature of his referent—the decorative train is catapulted out of the realm of modern showpiece and into the realm of artistic sculpture. His fnal twist of adding actual bourbon, mimicking the original train set decanters, lends the piece a functional quality. As such, Koons’s Jim Beam – Passenger Car stands as an eloquent coalescence of many of the most important recurring themes in his practice from Marcel Duchamp’s readymades to the ideas of newness, desire, and the American dream.
Jef Koons with Jim Beam’s Master Distiller, Booker Noe, James B. Beam Distillery, Clermont, circa 1986. © 2016 Jef Koons
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