{"id":89,"date":"2011-03-17T04:47:33","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T11:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/?p=89"},"modified":"2019-07-22T14:30:33","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T21:30:33","slug":"art-and-excess-1m-red-tibetan-mastiff-vs-jeff-koons-puppy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/art-and-excess-1m-red-tibetan-mastiff-vs-jeff-koons-puppy\/","title":{"rendered":"art and excess: $1M Red Tibetan Mastiff vs. Jeff Koons’ Puppy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A multi-millionaire coal baron in China just bought “Big Splash”, a red Tibetan Mastiff, for $1.5 million because “they have become highly-prized status symbols for China’s new rich.” The dogs are thought<\/a> to be a pure “Chinese” breed and they are rarely found outside Tibet, giving them an exclusivity that other breeds cannot match. Translation: this mobile conversation piece is a sickly inbred dog from the mother of all “bubble breeds” Compared with most pure breeds, mutts from the pound are the six million dollar man: stronger, smarter, longer-lived. Genetic diversity rules.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Big Splash’s weird color and 180-lb heft will impress other billionaires , but is no match for Jeff Koon’s “Puppy,”<\/a> a sui generis<\/em> symbol, according to Koons, of “love, warmth and happiness”. One of the litter costs Stephanie Seymour’s ex-husband $100,000 a year in flowers to maintain<\/a>. I love this  this non-review<\/a> of “Puppy\u201d by Peter Schjeldah in The New Yorker:<\/p>\n

\n

I remember my first encounter, in Germany, in 1992, with Koons\u2019s famous “Puppy,” the forty-three-foot-high Scottie dog enveloped in living flowers. As I was judiciously taking descriptive and analytical notes, a bus arrived bearing a group of severely disabled children in wheelchairs. They went wild with delight. Abruptly feeling absurd, I shut my notebook and took instruction from the kids\u2019 unequivocal verdict.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A multi-millionaire coal baron in China just bought “Big Splash”, a red Tibetan Mastiff, for $1.5 million because “they have become highly-prized status symbols for China’s new rich.” The dogs are thought to be a pure “Chinese” breed and they … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":905,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skierpage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}