As host of Bingo/Tango night at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Jason Pickleman didn’t call out numbers—instead, he used shapes drawn from artworks in the museum’s collection. Between rounds, guests vacated their seats to learn the tango from professional instructors. Unusual, exhilarating, smart on multiple levels, and a bit zany—the beloved event speaks volumes about Pickleman, a creative force of nature whose impact on his chosen city is hard to overstate.
Recently described as a “dancefloor mainstay of Chicago,” Pickleman’s hats have been many: artist, designer, collector, gallerist. Amassing art since he was a teenager, Pickleman studied English literature at Boston University; there he met Leslie Bodenstein, who would become his partner in life and at JNL Graphic Design, the studio the pair founded in 1992. Working from a decommissioned post office in Chicago's River North area, Pickleman and Bodenstein merged their art and design sensibilities with tremendous success. “To live in Chicago is to encounter Jason Pickleman’s work,” according to the Chicago Tribune, and local clients have included Millennium Park, Avec, Blackbird, Time Out Chicago, Chicago Transit Authority, Poetry Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, EXPO Chicago, and the Field Museum. Beyond the Windy City limits, JNL has worked with clients including the Prada Foundation and Skinny Pop Popcorn, for whom they designed Warhol-inspired packaging.
The space between commercial and contemporary art has been of the utmost importance to Pickleman, who has defined himself by his ability to move effortlessly through these worlds as both an artist and collector. As an artist, Pickleman’s works reflect his passions for text and graphic design, frequently invoking the history of these disciplines while managing to evade dryness or didacticism—in other words, giving them life. As Michelle Grabner, professor at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has put it, “Jason thinks about everything from the formal qualities and what the formal qualities of a painting can convey, from color to design to composition—but then [gets] to kind of the deep, full heart behind it.”
“I started making art with serious intent in the mid-80s,” Pickleman reflects on his own practice. “By 1987 I was well into making text-based paintings, collages, and Polaroid photographs. Chicago at the time was a hot-bed of contemporary art. Galleries like Feature that showed early support to artists such as Charles Ray, and Jeff Koons [were] also exhibiting a strong cadre of Chicago-based conceptual artists like Tony Tasset and Jeanne Dunning. My early art making inspiration was influenced by their example.” Pickleman was among the creators featured in the 2007 exhibition Young Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago, where his art now resides in the institution's permanent collection, and his works have been shown at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Chicago Design Museum, Ken Saunders Gallery, and the Neon and Light Museum, among others.
In 2015, Pickleman opened his collection gallery Lawrence & Clark, a living testament to his unorthodox and open-hearted ethos, named for the Chicago intersection where it stood. Here, Pickleman curated and installed works from his own collection, throwing open the doors to the public to be seen again (and again) by anybody who wanted to drop in. “I know collectors whose answer to an over-growing collection is to buy another property to display their art, or to put things in storage,” says Pickleman. “My response has always been to hang everything salon-style. I’d rather see things jammed together than to see nothing at all.” As an ardent supporter of rising local talent, Pickleman tirelessly made his own circuit between galleries, thesis exhibitions, and less formalized art spaces. “I’m most interested in ambiguity and pieces that seem strange or awkward,” Pickleman says, “living with them fuels my creativity.”
“Much of the work in EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT would have been on exhibit at Lawrence & Clark,” Pickleman says. From early works by rising Chicago artists to icons of design to unexpected oddities, each component of this auction represents Pickleman’s boundless curiosity and his passion not only for art and design, but for the communities, writ large, that gravitate in their orbit. Indeed, Pickleman has come to exude a gravitational pull of his own, as a force of creativity, generosity, and connection for which so many in Chicago and far beyond are truly grateful.
Jeff Koons b. 1955
Born in York, Pennsylvania, Jeff Koons is an American artist renowned for his work in the realm of contemporary art. His creations are characterized by their vibrant colors, reflective surfaces, and themes that challenge traditional boundaries between high and low culture. Koons has emerged as one of the most influential and controversial artists of his generation, often polarizing critics and art enthusiasts with his provocative style and unabashed embrace of commercialism.
Koons' early interest in art was nurtured by his father, a furniture dealer and interior decorator and his mother, a seamstress. By the tender age of eight, he had begun making replicas of Old Masters paintings which he sold in his father’s shop. After graduating from high school Koons pursued formal education in art, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and studying briefly at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In the 1980s, Koons gained prominence with his Equilibrium series, which featured basketballs suspended in tanks of water, and his Luxury and Degradation series, which critiqued consumerism through meticulously crafted stainless steel sculptures of liquor advertisements. However, it was his Banality series in the late 1980s that truly catapulted him to fame. This series included sculptures such as Michael Jackson and Bubbles and Pink Panther, which used kitsch imagery to challenge perceptions of taste and value in art. One of Koons' most iconic works is Balloon Dog, part of his Celebration series, which debuted in the 1990s. These larger-than-life sculptures of balloon animals, rendered in polished stainless steel with mirror-like surfaces, epitomize Koons' ability to blend childlike wonder with high art. Balloon Dog (Orange) famously sold for $58.4 million at auction in 2013, setting a record for the most expensive work by a living artist at the time.
Koons' work often blurs the lines between art and commerce, prompting debates about authenticity and originality. His approach to art-making is heavily influenced by the readymade concepts of Marcel Duchamp and the pop art sensibilities of Andy Warhol, and he has described his work as a celebration of the mundane and a reflection of contemporary society's values and desires. Despite his commercial success, Koons' work has not been without controversy. Critics often question the originality and artistic merit of his pieces, accusing him of prioritizing spectacle over substance. Nonetheless, Koons' influence on the art world is undeniable; he has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions and retrospectives, including a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2014, and his work is held in countless private and public collections worldwide.
Upcoming Lots Jeff Koons
Auction Results Jeff Koons
