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140-504: Gagosian was born April 19, 1945, in Los Angeles , California , the elder sibling and only son to Armenian parents. His mother, Ann Louise, had a career in acting and singing, and his father, Ara, was an accountant and later a stockbroker. His grandparents (original last name Ghoughasian) immigrated from Armenia ; he and his parents were born in California. Between 1963 and 1969, he pursued

280-655: A SpaceX rocket carrying 125 of Koon's stainless steel miniature moon sculptures departed from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The sculptures, named after historical figures such as Leonardo da Vinci and Billie Holiday , were part of a larger project involving a lunar lander designed by Intuitive Machines . The lander, which also carried NASA equipment, reached the Moon on February 22. Koons, inspired by President Kennedy 's vision of space exploration , saw this project as

420-740: A Wall Street commodities broker at First Investors Corporation. After a summer with his parents in Sarasota , Florida, where he briefly worked as a political canvasser , Koons returned to New York and found a new career as a commodities broker, first at Clayton Brokerage Company and then at Smith Barney . Following his graduation from the Art Institute in Chicago in 1976, Koons made his way to New York City. There, he moved away from creating representations of his personal fantasies and began to explore objective art, commerce, and politics. He rose to prominence in

560-424: A West Highland White Terrier puppy, executed in a variety of flowers (including Marigolds , Begonias , Impatiens , Petunias , and Lobelias ) on a transparent color-coated chrome stainless steel substructure. The self-cleaning flowers would grow for the specific length of time that the piece was exhibited. The size and location of Puppy -the courtyard of a baroque palace- acknowledged the mass audience. After

700-535: A redux edition of the series. The Whitney Museum also exhibited several of the photographs on canvas in their 2014 retrospective. Koons was not among the 44 American artists selected to exhibit their work in Documenta 9 in 1992, but was commissioned by three art dealers to create a piece for nearby Arolsen Castle in Bad Arolsen , Germany. The result was Puppy , a 43 ft (13 m) tall topiary sculpture of

840-613: A vulva refers to Courbet 's L'Origine du monde (1866). The Hulk Elvis series has been exhibited at a number of international art venues such as the Gagosian Gallery in London (2007), the Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong, China (2014) and the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, Austria (2015). In 2008, Jeff Koons started working on his Antiquity series, delving into themes of

980-462: A 9.1 meter (30-foot) wide reflective wind spinner above the Slaughterhouse art space. The walls within the Slaughterhouse have been transformed by using as the base the ancient frescoes from Boscoreale , near Pompeii . The exhibition includes several other new works including a pair of bronze Nike sneakers, Gazing Ball Tripod (2020–2022), and Plato's Solid Forms Wind Spinners (2020–2022). For

1120-465: A blue glass gazing ball that sits on a painted aluminum shelf attached to the front of the painting. Both viewer and painting are reflected in the gazing ball. Gazing Ball takes its name from the mirrored spherical ornaments frequently found on lawns, gardens, and patios around Koons's childhood home in Pennsylvania. After creating Gazing Ball paintings, Koons also made several white sculptures from

1260-545: A bouquet of multicolor balloon flowers blown up to gargantuan proportions (more than 2 m (6.6 ft) tall and 5 m (16 ft) across). Koons started to work on Balloon Flower in 1995. Koons was pushing to finish the series in time for a 1996 exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, but the show was ultimately canceled because of production delays and cost overruns. When "Celebration" funding ran out,

1400-460: A business exodus from Downtown Los Angeles since the COVID-19 pandemic , the city's urban core is evolving as a cultural center with the world's largest showcase of architecture designed by Frank Gehry . On September 4, 1781, a group of 44 settlers known as " Los Pobladores " founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , 'The Town of Our Lady

1540-453: A limited combination of vacuum cleaners and arranged them in cabinets accordingly, juxtaposing the verticality of the upright cleaners with the squat cylinders of the "Shelton Wet/Dry drum" cleaners. At the museum, the machines were displayed as if in a showroom , and oriented around a central red fluorescent lightbox with just the words "The New" written on it as if it were announcing some new concept or marketing brand. They were shown again in

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1680-431: A living artist , for the sale of "Rabbit". The third version of the piece was sold at Christie's Auction House for US$ 80 million which. After including auctioneer's fees, the final sale price of "Rabbit" was US$ 91,075,000. The Rabbit has since returned to its original soft form, and many times larger at more than 50 feet high, taken to the air. On October 15, 2009, the giant metallic monochrome color rabbit used during

1820-571: A loft in New York on West Broadway opposite the Leo Castelli Gallery . It was Castelli who introduced Gagosian to Charles Saatchi and Samuel Newhouse Jr . In his first New York appearance, in 1979, he presented David Salle 's first exhibition in a loft at 421 West Broadway, in collaboration with dealer Annina Nosei . In 1982, Nosei and Gagosian staged an exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat in Los Angeles. Around that time, Basquiat worked from

1960-521: A major in English literature at UCLA and graduated in 1969. He worked briefly in a record store, a bookstore, a supermarket, and in an entry-level job as Michael Ovitz ’s secretary at the William Morris Agency , but got his start in the art business by selling posters near the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles. He closed his poster shop around 1976, when a former restaurant facility became available in

2100-424: A major solo show at Jeff Koons: The New Encased Works at Daniel Weinberg Gallery in 1987. Another example for Koons's early work is The Equilibrium Series (1983), consisting of one to three basketballs floating in distilled water , a project the artist had researched with the help of Nobel Prize -winning physicist Richard Feynman . The Total Equilibrium Tanks are completely filled with distilled water and

2240-574: A minor role in the 2008 film Milk playing state assemblyman Art Agnos . In September 2012, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave Koons the task of helping to review the designs for a new Tappan Zee Bridge . In 2019, Koons unveiled Bouquet of Tulips , an 11-meter high commemorative sculpture in Paris modelled on the Statue of Liberty , honoring the victims of the November 2015 attacks . In February 2024,

2380-498: A model in the shoot that formed the basis of the resulting work for the Whitney, Made in Heaven (1990–1991). Including works with such titles as Dirty Ejaculation and Ilonaʼs Asshole , the series of enormous grainy photographs printed on canvas, glassworks, and sculptures portrayed Koons and Staller in highly explicit sexual positions and created considerable controversy. The paintings of

2520-541: A much smaller studio space. He now uses technology to create his artistic references on computers and color-corrects them until he is satisfied with the results. To ensure consistency, Koons implemented a color-by-numbers system, so that each of his assistants could execute his canvases and sculptures as if they had been done "by a single hand". Throughout his career, he has consistently explored themes such as consumerist behavior, seduction, banality, and childhood, among others. Jeff Koons first began experimenting with

2660-443: A panoramic view of society. The sculptures drew inspiration from historical figures like Louis XIV and Bob Hope , as well as other art historical themes and sources. Through Statuary, Koons redirected his artistic focus toward the concept of artistic taste and the societal role of art. He incorporated some readymade objects, including the inflatable rabbit, and transformed them into highly polished stainless-steel pieces. This led to

2800-406: A parallel might be drawn between the comic book hero Hulk and Asian guardian Gods . The three-dimensional works Hulk (Friends) and Hulks (Bell) (both 2004–2012) feature apparently inflatable Incredible Hulks that weigh almost a ton each and are made of bronze and wood. The sculpture Hulk (Organ) (2004–2014) includes a fully functional musical instrument whose potential deep sounds match

2940-425: A profit; the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, was the 1932 Summer Olympics , also held in Los Angeles. Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King , culminating in large-scale riots . In 1994, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook

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3080-446: A rabbit of various heights and colors, positioned along with mirrors. Koons drew inspiration from Robert Smithson's emphasis on display and connected his work to his father's furniture store displays. He documented his work through photography, using it as a means of exploring different installation techniques. Since 1979 Koons has produced work within series. His early work was in the form of conceptual sculpture, an example of which

3220-601: A series of five differently colored examples, part of his Celebration series. Large sculptures from that series were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2008. Later additions to the series include Balloon Swan (2004–2011), an 11.5-foot (3.5-meter), stainless-steel bird, Balloon Rabbit (2005–2010), and Balloon Monkey , all for which children's party favors are reconceived as mesmerizing monumental forms. The series also includes, in addition to sculptures, sixteen oil paintings. Commissioned by

3360-541: A series of three life-size gold-leaf plated porcelain statues of the sitting singer cuddling Bubbles , his pet chimpanzee. Three years later, one of these sold at Sotheby's New York for US$ 5.6 million. Two of these sculptures are now at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) in downtown Los Angeles. The statue was included in a 2004 retrospective at

3500-450: A similar mode as Andy Warhol 's Factory . Koons's work is produced using a method known as art fabrication . Until 2019, Koons had a 1,500 m (16,000 sq ft) studio factory near the old Hudson rail yards in Chelsea employing 90 to 120 assistants to produce his work. More recently, Koons has downsized staffing and shifted to more automated forms of production and relocated to

3640-507: A single type, where industrial uses were prohibited. The proscriptions included barns, lumber yards, and any industrial land use employing machine-powered equipment. These laws were enforced against industrial properties after the fact. These prohibitions were in addition to existing activities that were already regulated as nuisances. These included explosives warehousing, gas works, oil drilling, slaughterhouses, and tanneries . Los Angeles City Council also designated seven industrial zones within

3780-621: A small amount of ordinary salt, to assist the hollow balls in remaining suspended in the centre of the liquid. In a second version, the 50/50 Tanks , only half the tank is filled with distilled water, with the result that the balls float half in and half out of the water. In addition, Koons conceived and fabricated five unique works for the Encased series (1983–1993/98), sculptures consisting of stacked sporting balls (four rows of six basketballs each, and one row of six soccer balls) with their original cardboard packaging in glass display case. Also part of

3920-545: A specialist and give the piece "radical plastic surgery." After this experience he felt liberated: "I was now free to work with objects that did not necessarily pre-exist. I could create models." Koons then moved on to the Banality series. For this project he engaged workshops in Germany and Italy that had a long tradition of working in ceramic , porcelain , and wood. The series culminated in 1988 with Michael Jackson and Bubbles,

4060-474: A stable of super collectors including David Geffen , Newhouse, Saatchi, and David Ganek. Bidding on behalf of Newhouse in 1988, Gagosian paid over $ 17 million for False Start (1959) by Jasper Johns , a then-record price for a work by a living artist. That record was beaten in 2008, when Gagosian paid $ 23.5 million at Sotheby's in November 2007 for Jeff Koons 's Hanging Heart (an artist who happens to belong to

4200-618: A studio assistant in the late 1970s. He lived in Lakeview , and then in the Pilsen neighborhood at Halsted Street and 19th Street. After college, Koons moved to New York in 1977 and worked at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art while establishing himself as an artist. During this time, he dyed his hair red and often wore a pencil mustache, after Salvador Dalí. In 1980, he became licensed to sell mutual funds and stocks and began working as

4340-697: A teenager he revered Salvador Dalí so much that he visited him at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City . Koons studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore before transferring to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago , where he studied from 1975 to 1976. While a student at the Art Institute, Koons met the artist Ed Paschke , who became a major influence and for whom Koons worked as

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4480-430: A work by a living artist : US$ 58.4 million for Balloon Dog (Orange) in 2013 and US$ 91.1 million for Rabbit in 2019. Critics come sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch , crass, and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings or critiques in his works. Koons

4620-438: Is Mount San Antonio , locally known as Mount Baldy, which reaches 10,064 feet (3,068 m). Further afield, the highest point in southern California is San Gorgonio Mountain , 81 miles (130 km) east of downtown Los Angeles, with a height of 11,503 feet (3,506 m). The Los Angeles River , which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel . It was straightened and lined in 51 miles (82 km) of concrete by

4760-465: Is The Pre-New , a series of domestic objects attached to light fixtures, resulting in strange new configurations. Another example is The New , a series of vacuum-cleaners , often selected for brand names that appealed to the artist like the iconic Hoover , which he had mounted in illuminated Perspex boxes. Koons first exhibited these pieces in the window of the New Museum in New York in 1980. He chose

4900-707: Is a common problem in this population. Although Serieys et al. 2014 find selection of immune genetics at several loci they do not demonstrate that this produces a real difference which helps the bobcats to survive future mange outbreaks . Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire . The geologic instability has produced numerous faults , which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually in Southern California, though most of them are too small to be felt. The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system, which sits at

5040-685: Is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.3 million residents. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley , with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km ), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County , which

5180-452: Is complicated by rugged terrain, which has necessitated having different grids for each of the valleys that Los Angeles covers. Major streets are designed to move large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city, many of which are extremely long; Sepulveda Boulevard is 43 miles (69 km) long, while Foothill Boulevard is over 60 miles (97 km) long, reaching as far east as San Bernardino. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of

5320-431: Is displayed outside the casino entrance at Wynn's Encore Boston Harbor hotel and casino property. Hulk Elvis is a work series by Koons created between 2004 and 2014. The works range from precision-machined bronze sculptures—inspired by an inflatable of the popular comic book hero and extruded in three dimensions—to large-scale oil paintings . The work series' title combines the popular comic book hero Hulk with

5460-437: Is divided into many different districts and neighborhoods, some of which had been separately incorporated cities that eventually merged with Los Angeles. These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage which marks nearly all of them. The city's street patterns generally follow a grid plan , with uniform block lengths and occasional roads that cut across blocks. However, this

5600-491: Is expected to continue to drop in the coming years because of aggressive steps to reduce it, which include electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit , and other measures. The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked

5740-418: Is owned by Gagosian and Masa Takayama . The lawsuit alleges that Kappo Masa employees are owed tip money for their services and that the restaurant “underpaid its employees by 12 percent.” Los Angeles Los Angeles , often referred to by its initials L.A. , is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California . With an estimated 3,820,914 residents within the city limits as of 2023 , it

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5880-482: Is rich in native plant species partly because of its diversity of habitats, including beaches, wetlands , and mountains. The most prevalent plant communities are coastal sage scrub , chaparral shrubland, and riparian woodland . Native plants include: the California poppy , matilija poppy , toyon , Ceanothus , Chamise , Coast Live Oak , sycamore , willow and Giant Wildrye . Many of these native species, such as

6020-504: Is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022 . It is the third-most visited city in the U.S. with over 2.7 million visitors as of 2023. The area that became Los Angeles was originally inhabited by the indigenous Tongva people and later claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542. The city was founded on September 4, 1781, under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve , on

6160-426: Is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only New York City ; it is also the commercial, financial and cultural center of Southern California . Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 12.8 million people (2023). Greater Los Angeles , which includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas,

6300-413: The 1916 New York City Zoning Ordinance did. Second, the residential zones did not distinguish types of housing; they treated apartments, hotels, and detached-single-family housing equally. In 1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A. The money generated by

6440-762: The Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel. The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smaller Ballona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey . Los Angeles

6580-649: The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo which traveled a year later to the Helsinki City Art Museum . It also featured in his second retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago , in 2008. The statue is currently part of the collection at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art at Tjuvholmen in Oslo. His work Christ and the Lamb (1988) has been analyzed as an acknowledgment and critique of

6720-544: The British magazine ArtReview placed Gagosian fourth in their annual poll of "most powerful person in the art world". Artist Robert Longo included in his ‘Men in the Cities’ photographic series. In 2022, The Financial Times named Gagosian the most important art dealer in the world. Gagosian was briefly engaged to the dancer Catherine Kerr. Since 2021, he has been in a relationship with artist Anna Weyant. In 1988, Gagosian bought

6860-618: The Deutsche Guggenheim in 1999, Koons created the first seven paintings of the new series, Easyfun , comprising paintings and wall-mounted sculptures. In 2001, Koons undertook a series of paintings, Easyfun-Ethereal , using a collage approach that combined bikinis, food, and landscapes painted under his supervision by assistants. The series eventually expanded to twenty-four paintings. In 2000, Koons designed Split-Rocker , his second floral sculpture made of stainless steel, soil, geotextile fabric, and an internal irrigation system, which

7000-552: The Equilibrium series are posters featuring basketball stars in Nike advertisements and 10 bronze objects, representing lifesaving gear. In 1986, Jeff Koons introduced the Statuary series, featuring ten pieces that reimagined his earlier inflatable series from the 1970s. The series aimed to illustrate how art often mirrors self-perception and evolves into decorative expression by presenting

7140-529: The Hillside Stranglers murder cases in 1977–1978. In early 1984, the city surpassed Chicago in population, thus becoming the second largest city in the United States. In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time . Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries , the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous, and the second Olympics to turn

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7280-483: The Los Angeles sunflower , have become so rare as to be considered endangered. Mexican Fan Palms , Canary Island Palms , Queen Palms , Date Palms , and California Fan Palms are common in the Los Angeles area, although only the last is native to California, though still not native to the City of Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a number of official flora: The city has an urban population of bobcats ( Lynx rufus ). Mange

7420-496: The Luxury and Degradation series Koons interfered into the realms of the social. He created an artificial and gleaming surface which represented a proletarian luxury. It was interpreted as seduction by simulation because it was fake luxury. Being the producer of this deception brought him to a kind of leadership, as he commented himself. The same material of stainless steel was used for the statue of Kiepenkerl . After being rebuilt in

7560-414: The Luxury and Degradation series is a group of works thematically centered on alcohol . This group included a stainless steel travel cocktail cabinet, a Baccarat crystal decanter and other hand-made renderings of alcohol-related paraphernalia, as well as reprinted and framed ads for drinks such as Gordon's Gin ("I Could Go for Something Gordon's"), Hennessy ("Hennessy, The Civilized Way to Lay Down

7700-571: The Mission San Gabriel Arcángel , the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of 44 settlers known as " Los Pobladores " founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles , 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels';. The present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of

7840-560: The Spanish Empire in 1542, while on an official military exploring expedition, as he was moving northward along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of

7980-559: The siege of Los Angeles where 150 Mexican militias fought the occupiers which eventually surrendered. Mexican rule ended during following the American Conquest of California , part of the larger Mexican-American War . Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. The Mexican Cession

8120-478: The 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The city was further expanded with the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which delivers water from Eastern California . Los Angeles has a diverse economy with a broad range of industries. Despite a steep exodus of film and television production since the COVID-19 pandemic , Los Angeles is still one of the largest hubs of American film production ,

8260-655: The 1930s, / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / has been most common. In 1934, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed that this pronunciation be used by the federal government. This was also endorsed in 1952 by a "jury" appointed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron to devise an official pronunciation. Common pronunciations in the United Kingdom include / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z , - l ɪ z , - l ɪ s / loss AN -jil-eez, -⁠iz, -⁠iss . Phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis described

8400-503: The 1950s, the figure of the itinerant trader was replaced by Jeff Koons in 1987 for the decennial Skulptur Projekte exhibition. Standing on a central square in Münster, the statue retained a certain cultural power as a nostalgic symbol of the past. During the production process, the foundry where the piece was being made wanted to knock the ceramic shell off too soon, which resulted in the piece being bent and deformed. Koons decided to bring in

8540-603: The 2007 Macy's Thanksgiving day parade was put on display for Nuit Blanche in the Eaton Centre in Toronto. The other objects of the series combine objects Koons found in souvenir shops and baroque imagery, thereby playing with the distinction between low art and high art. First shown in Koons's eponymous exhibitions at the short-lived International With Monument Gallery, New York, and at Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, in 1986,

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8680-562: The 2007–2008 season in the Vienna State Opera , Koons designed the large-scale picture (176 sqm) Geisha as part of the exhibition series "Safety Curtain", conceived by museum in progress . Koons worked with American pop performer Lady Gaga on her 2013 studio album Artpop , including the creation of its cover artwork featuring a sculpture he made of Lady Gaga. In September 2014, the bi-annual arts and culture publication GARAGE Magazine published Koons's first ever digital artwork for

8820-503: The 20th century, Los Angeles substantially reduced the amount of housing that could be built by drastically downzoning the city. In 1960, the city had a total zoned capacity for approximately 10 million people. By 1990, that capacity had fallen to 4.5 million as a result of policy decisions to ban housing through zoning. Racial tensions led to the Watts riots in 1965, resulting in 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries. In 1969, California became

8960-632: The Arolsen Puppy had 20,000 plants, the Sydney version held around 60,000. The piece was purchased in 1997 by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and installed on the terrace outside the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao . Before the dedication at the museum, an Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) trio disguised as gardeners attempted to plant explosive-filled flowerpots near the sculpture, but was foiled by Basque police officer Jose María Aguirre, who then

9100-487: The Brant Foundation Art Study Center. In 1998, a miniature version of Puppy was released as a white glazed porcelain vase, in an edition of 3000. Koons's Celebration was to honor the ardently hoped-for return of Ludwig from Rome . The series, consisting of a series of large-scale sculptures and paintings of balloon dogs, Valentine hearts, diamonds, and Easter eggs , was conceived in 1994. Some of

9240-497: The City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent cities and communities felt compelled to join Los Angeles. Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones. The new ordinance established three residential zones of

9380-617: The Gagosian gallery's stable). On 10 May 2022, Gagosian bought one of the four Shot Marilyns paintings by Andy Warhol , for a record breaking $ 195 million, making it the most expensive piece of 20th century art to change hands in a public sale. On 2 July 2024, Gagosian announced that he would auction the most valuable artwork in history titled ART4+ created by Daryush Shokof , and designed by Jeff Koons at historic start price of 11 Billion USD in September 9, 2024. [1] , [2] , [3] In 2011,

9520-506: The Greco-Roman era along with everyday utilitarian objects encountered in today's suburban and rural landscape, such as mailboxes and a birdbath. In June 2022, Dakis Jouannou commissioned Koons to create an artwork for his space at DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, on the Greek island of Hydra . Koons created the series Apollo, including a sculpture titled Apollo Wind Spinner (2020–2022),

9660-453: The Law"), Bacardi ("Aquí... el gran sabor del ron Bacardi"), Dewars ("The Empire State of Scotch"), Martell ("I Assume You Drink Martell") and Frangelico ("Stay in Tonight" and "Find a Quiet Table") in seductively intensified colors on canvas Koons appropriated these advertisements and revalued them by recontextualizing them into artworks. They "deliver a critique of traditional advertising that supports Baudrillard 's censorious view of

9800-563: The Los Angeles area include the 1933 Long Beach , 1971 San Fernando , 1987 Whittier Narrows , and the 1994 Northridge events. All but a few are of low intensity and are not felt. The USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast , which models earthquake occurrence in California. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis ; harbor areas were damaged by waves from Aleutian Islands earthquake in 1946, Valdivia earthquake in 1960, Alaska earthquake in 1964, Chile earthquake in 2010 and Japan earthquake in 2011. The city

9940-449: The Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country's major aircraft manufacturers ( Douglas Aircraft Company , Hughes Aircraft , Lockheed , North American Aviation , Northrop Corporation , and Vultee ). During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and as William S. Knudsen , of

10080-675: The Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion , which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. The smog season lasts from approximately May to October. While other large cities rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to

10220-484: The Mexican or ( New Spain ) settlers were mestizo or mulatto , a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street , the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from

10360-509: The National Defense Advisory Commission put it, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible." After the end of World War II Los Angeles grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley . The expansion of the state owned Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled

10500-555: The Queen of the Angels'. The original name of the settlement is disputed; the Guinness Book of World Records rendered it as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula "; other sources have shortened or alternate versions of the longer name. The local English pronunciation of the name of the city has varied over time. A 1953 article in the journal of the American Name Society asserts that

10640-667: The San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights , the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills , and the San Pedro district. Surrounding the city are much higher mountains. Immediately to the north lie the San Gabriel Mountains , which is a popular recreation area for Angelenos. Its high point

10780-518: The Southern Californian coast, is subject to a late spring/early summer weather phenomenon called " June Gloom ". This involves overcast or foggy skies in the morning that yield to sun by early afternoon. More recently, statewide droughts in California have further strained the city's water security . Downtown Los Angeles averages 14.67 in (373 mm) of precipitation annually, mainly occurring between November and March, generally in

10920-468: The Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo now existed within the new Mexican Republic . During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles the regional capital of Alta California . By this time, the new republic introduced more secularization acts within the Los Angeles region. In 1846, during the wider Mexican-American war , marines from the United States occupied the pueblo. This resulted in

11060-667: The Toad Hall estate in Amagansett, New York , with an 11,000-square-foot house designed by architect Charles Gwathmey for fellow architect François de Menil in 1983, for $ 8 million. In 2009, he had Christian Liaigre design a home for him in Flamands Beach on St. Barths . In 2010, internet pioneer David Bohnett sold his 5,700 square foot Holmby Hills compound, originally designed by A. Quincy Jones for Gary Cooper , to Gagosian for $ 15.5 million, according to public records. Gagosian bought

11200-560: The ads were designed as promotions for his own gallery exhibitions. Koons also issued Signature Plate , an edition for Parkett magazine, with a photographic decal in colors on a porcelain plate with gold-plated rim. Arts journalist Arifa Akbar reported for The Independent that in "an era when artists were not regarded as 'stars', Koons went to great lengths to cultivate his public persona by employing an image consultant". Featuring photographs by Matt Chedgey, Koons placed "advertisements in international art magazines of himself surrounded by

11340-477: The ancient world. In 1999, Koons commissioned a song about himself on Momus 's album Stars Forever . A drawing similar to his Tulip Balloons was placed on the front page of the Internet search engine Google . The drawing greeted all who visited Google's main page on April 30, 2008, and May 1, 2008. In 2006 Koons appeared on Artstar , an unscripted television series set in the New York art world. He had

11480-679: The birthplace of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park . In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as the city's first African American mayor, serving for five terms until retiring in 1993. Other events in the city during the 1970s included the Symbionese Liberation Army 's South Central standoff in 1974 and

11620-616: The boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate , passes through the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The segment of the fault passing through Southern California experiences a major earthquake roughly every 110 to 140 years, and seismologists have warned about the next "big one", as the last major earthquake was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake . The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes . Major earthquakes that have hit

11760-428: The boundary of a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb on the coast, Csa otherwise). Daytime temperatures are generally temperate all year round. In winter, they average around 68 °F (20 °C). Autumn months tend to be hot, with major heat waves a common occurrence in September and October, while the spring months tend to be cooler and experience more precipitation. Los Angeles has plenty of sunshine throughout

11900-404: The city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution. The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010. The American Lung Association's 2013 survey ranks the metro area as having

12040-521: The city is 342 miles (550 km). Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city proper is Mount Lukens at 5,074 ft (1,547 m), located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the north extent of the Crescenta Valley . The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from

12180-550: The city, causing $ 12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths. The century ended with the Rampart scandal , one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history. In 2002, Mayor James Hahn led the campaign against secession, resulting in voters defeating efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city. In 2022 , Karen Bass became the city's first female mayor , making Los Angeles

12320-487: The city. However, between 1908 and 1915, the Los Angeles City Council created various exceptions to the broad proscriptions that applied to these three residential zones, and as a consequence, some industrial uses emerged within them. There are two differences between the 1908 Residence District Ordinance and later zoning laws in the United States. First, the 1908 laws did not establish a comprehensive zoning map as

12460-455: The costly fabrication of the Celebration series at Southern California-based Carlson & Company (including his Balloon Dog and Moon series), and later, at Arnold, a Frankfurt -based company. The dealers funded the project in part by selling works to collectors before they were fabricated. In 2006, Koons presented Hanging Heart , a 9-foot-tall highly polished, steel heart, one of

12600-409: The country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000, putting pressure on the city's water supply . The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland , ensured the continued growth of the city. Because of clauses in the city's charter that prevented

12740-461: The creation of one of his most iconic works, Rabbit (1986). There are three identical versions of Rabbit . One version was previously part of art collector Stefan Edlis's personal collection, but it now resides as a gift at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and another in The Broad Museum in Los Angeles. In May 15, 2019, Jeff Koons set a record for most expensive piece sold by

12880-470: The demise of the city's privately owned electrified rail system , once the world's largest. As a consequence of World War II, suburban growth, and population density, many amusement parks were built and operated in this area. An example is Beverly Park , which was located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega before being closed and substituted by the Beverly Center . In the second half of

13020-599: The difference between the average daily low and the average daily high is over 30 °F (17 °C). The average annual temperature of the sea is 63 °F (17 °C), from 58 °F (14 °C) in January to 68 °F (20 °C) in August. Hours of sunshine total more than 3,000 per year, from an average of 7 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12 in July. Due to

13160-515: The era of Spanish colonization). The historic center of Tongva power in the region was the settlement of Yaanga ( Tongva : Iyáangẚ ), meaning "place of the poison oak ", which would one day be the site where the Spanish founded the Pueblo de Los Ángeles . Iyáangẚ has also been translated as "the valley of smoke". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for

13300-474: The figure's powerful and masculine appearance. The series' paintings are collages made of several photoshop layers. The images range from abstract landscapes to elements of American iconography (trains, horses, carriages) and comprise characters such as the Hulk or an inflatable plastic monkey. The landscape paintings often have explicit or implicit sexual content. For example, a recurrent crude line drawing of

13440-407: The form of moderate rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall during winter storms. Rainfall is usually higher in the hills and coastal slopes of the mountains because of orographic uplift. Summer days are usually rainless. Rarely, an incursion of moist air from the south or east can bring brief thunderstorms in late summer, especially to the mountains. The coast gets slightly less rainfall, while

13580-469: The former Harkness Mansion , an enormous townhouse at 4 East 75th Street in Manhattan , for $ 36.5 million in 2011. In 1969, Gagosian pleaded guilty to two felony charges of forgery, stemming from his use of someone else’s credit card. He received a suspended sentence and probation. In 2003, Gagosian paid $ 4 million settlement after federal prosecutors accused him and three partners of failing to pay taxes on

13720-428: The front of its print edition. The piece, titled Lady Bug , is an augmented reality sculpture that can only be viewed on mobile devices through a GARAGE Magazine app, which allows viewers to explore the piece from a variety of angles as if standing on top of it. In 2012, Koons bought Advanced Stone Technologies, an offshoot of the non-profit Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture 's stone division. He moved

13860-501: The ground-floor display and studio space Gagosian had built below his Venice home on Market Street. In the early 1980s, Gagosian developed his business rapidly by exploiting the possibilities of reselling works of art by blue-chip modern and contemporary artists, earning the nickname "Go-Go" in the process. After establishing a Manhattan gallery in the mid-1980s, located at the ground-floor space in artist Sandro Chia ’s studio building at 521 West 23rd Street , Gagosian began to work with

14000-462: The head of a giant child's rocker. Koons produced two editions of the sculpture. As of 2014, he owns one of them; the other is displayed at Glenstone in Maryland. At Glenstone, Split-Rocker is in bloom from mid-May to mid-October, and requires daily caretaking during that period. In summer 2014 Split-Rocker was installed at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City for several months in coincidence with

14140-502: The high-tech stone workshop from New Jersey to a larger, 60,000 sq ft (5,600 m ) space near Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania . The facility exists solely to fabricate Koons's works made of stone. In 2013 Koons created the sculpture Gazing Ball (Farnese Hercules), which was inspired by the Farnese Hercules . The sculpture is made from white plaster and can be interpreted as perpetuating colorism in how we view

14280-453: The imposing scale of classical sculpture. In this series presented at Gagosian Gallery in 2015, Koons has taken 35 masterpieces, including Manet's Déjeuner sur l'Herbe , Géricault's Raft of the Medusa and Rembrandt's Self-Portrait Wearing a Hat , had them repainted in oil on canvas, and added a little shelf, painted as if it had sprouted directly from the image. Each work includes

14420-550: The industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during the Great Depression . By 1930, the population surpassed one million. In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics . During World War II Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft. Calship built hundreds of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships on Terminal Island, and

14560-516: The inland and mountain areas get considerably more. Years of average rainfall are rare. The usual pattern is a year-to-year variability, with a short string of dry years of 5–10 in (130–250 mm) rainfall, followed by one or two wet years with more than 20 in (510 mm). Wet years are usually associated with warm water El Niño conditions in the Pacific, dry years with cooler water La Niña episodes. A series of rainy days can bring floods to

14700-570: The largest U.S. city to have ever had a woman as mayor. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games , making Los Angeles the third city to host the Olympics three times. The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km ), comprising 468.7 square miles (1,214 km ) of land and 34.0 square miles (88 km ) of water. The city extends for 44 miles (71 km) from north to south and for 29 miles (47 km) from east to west. The perimeter of

14840-490: The lowest is 28 °F (−2 °C), on January 4, 1949. Within the City of Los Angeles, the highest temperature ever officially recorded is 121 °F (49 °C), on September 6, 2020, at the weather station at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Woodland Hills . During autumn and winter, Santa Ana winds sometimes bring much warmer and drier conditions to Los Angeles, and raise wildfire risk. Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and

14980-505: The lowlands and mudslides to the hills, especially after wildfires have denuded the slopes. Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city basin and along the coast, with the last occurrence of a 32 °F (0 °C) reading at the downtown station being January 29, 1979; freezing temperatures occur nearly every year in valley locations while the mountains within city limits typically receive snowfall every winter. The greatest snowfall recorded in downtown Los Angeles

15120-625: The metal sculptures. He reinterprets historical figures through the creation of balloon-like sculptures, such as the Metallic Venus, and by integrating representative figures and characters from comic books. Referring to the ancient Roman marble statue Callipygian Venus , Metallic Venus (2010–2012) was made of high chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating and live flowering plants. In Ballerinas (2010–2014), Koons depicts figurines of dancers, derived from decorative porcelain works designed by Ukrainian artist Oksana Zhnikrup , at

15260-447: The mid-1980s as part of a generation of artists who explored the meaning of art in a newly media-saturated era with his Pre-new The New series. With recognition came the establishment of a factory-like studio located in a loft at the corner of Houston Street and Broadway in New York in SoHo . It was staffed with over 30 assistants, each assigned to a different aspect of producing his work—in

15400-520: The most common one, / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z / , as a spelling pronunciation based on analogy to Greek words ending in -‍es , "reflecting a time when the classics were familiar if Spanish was not". The settlement of Indigenous Californians in the modern Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley was dominated by the Tongva (now also known as the Gabrieleño since

15540-532: The mountainous terrain of the surrounding region, the Los Angeles area contains a large number of distinct microclimates , causing extreme variations in temperature in close physical proximity to each other. For example, the average July maximum temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is 70 °F (21 °C) whereas it is 95 °F (35 °C) in Canoga Park, 15 miles (24 km) away. The city, like much of

15680-475: The name's pronunciation with a hard g ( / ɡ / ), reported that there were at least 12 pronunciation variants. In the early 1900s, the Los Angeles Times advocated for pronouncing it Loce AHNG-hayl-ais ( / l oʊ s ˈ ɑː ŋ h eɪ l eɪ s / ), approximating Spanish [los ˈaŋxeles] , by printing the respelling under its masthead for several years. This did not find favor. Since

15820-572: The nation's worst smog, and fourth in both short-term and year-round pollution amounts. Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons ( / k uː n z / ; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York , Pennsylvania. His works have sold for substantial sums, including at least two record auction prices for

15960-404: The obscene promiscuity of consumer signs". Another work, Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Engine (1986), is based on a commemorative, collectible in bottle in the form of a locomotive that was created by Jim Beam ; however, Koons appropriated this model and had it cast in gleaming stainless-steel. The train model cast in steel titled Jim Beam – Baggage Car (1986) even contains Jim Beam bourbon. With

16100-556: The opening of Koons's retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art . Paintings and sculptures from the Popeye series, which Koons began in 2002, feature the cartoon figures of Popeye and Olive Oyl . One such item is a stainless steel reproduction of a mass-market PVC Popeye figurine. The artist will also make use of inflatable animals again, this time in combination with ladders, trashcans and fences. To create these sculptures,

16240-448: The outbreak that followed his Made in Heaven series, Koons decided to make "an image that communicated warmth and love to people." In 1995, in a co-venture between Museum of Contemporary Art , Kaldor Public Art Projects and Sydney Festival , the sculpture was dismantled and re-erected at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sydney Harbour on a new, more permanent, stainless steel armature with an internal irrigation system. While

16380-507: The passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act . When the act was passed, California was unable to create a State Implementation Plan that would enable it to meet the new air quality standards, largely because of the level of pollution in Los Angeles generated by older vehicles. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles . Smog

16520-560: The pieces are still being fabricated. Each of the 20 different sculptures in the series comes in five differently colored "unique versions", including the artist's cracked Egg (Blue) which won the 2008 Charles Wollaston Award for the most distinguished work in the Royal Academy 's Summer Exhibition . The Diamond pieces were created between 1994 and 2005, made of shiny stainless steel seven-feet wide. Created in an edition of five versions, his later work Tulips (1995–2004) consists of

16660-523: The pop icon Elvis . The triple image of the Hulk figure recalls Andy Warhol 's silk-screen printing Triple Elvis (1963), regarding both the multiplication and the posture of the Hulk figure. According to the artist, the Hulk Elvis series with its strong, heroic image of the Hulk represents "a very high- testosterone body of work". Koons also perceives the series as "a bridge between East and West", since

16800-489: The portrayal of eros , fertility, and feminine beauty across the history of art. At the center of each scene in the Antiquity paintings (2009–2013) is a famous ancient or classical sculpture, meticulously rendered in oil paint and scaled to the same size as the sculptures. The equally detailed backdrops include an Arcadian vision. Koons makes use of contemporary technology, including CT scans and digital imaging, to produce

16940-423: The pronunciation / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / lawss AN -jəl-əs was established following the 1850 incorporation of the city and that since the 1880s the pronunciation / l oʊ s ˈ æ ŋ ɡ əl ə s / lohss ANG -gəl-əs emerged from a trend in California to give places Spanish, or Spanish-sounding, names and pronunciations. In 1908, librarian Charles Fletcher Lummis , who argued for

17080-554: The rest of the surrounding landscape. Most construction is done in separate units, rather than wall-to-wall . However, Downtown Los Angeles itself has many buildings over 30 stories, with fourteen over 50 stories, and two over 70 stories, the tallest of which is the Wilshire Grand Center . Los Angeles has a two-season semi-arid climate ( Köppen : BSh ) with dry summers and very mild winters, but it receives more annual precipitation than most semi-arid climates, narrowly missing

17220-455: The sale of 58 works of art. In 2012, suits and counter-suits were filed by Gagosian and Ronald Perelman against one another concerning an unfinished work by Jeff Koons and 10 others worth up to $ 45 million. In 2012, Gagosian was sued for $ 14 million in a suit involving the sale of an edition of Girl in Mirror . In September 2023, a class action lawsuit was filed against Kappo Masa , which

17360-565: The same complex on Westwood 's Broxton Avenue, and upgraded to prints by artists like Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander . His gallery Prints on Broxton was renamed the Broxton Gallery when he began to show a wider array of contemporary art. The gallery worked with up-and-coming artists such as Vija Celmins , Alexis Smith , and Elyn Zimmerman , and staged exhibitions such as "Broxton Sequences: Sequential Imagery in Photography", which included

17500-558: The series reference art from the Baroque and Rococo periods—among others, Gian Lorenzo Bernini , Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher —and also draw upon the breakthroughs of early modern painters as Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet . The series was first shown at the 1990 Venice Biennale . Koons reportedly destroyed much of the work when Staller took their son Ludwig with her to Italy. In celebration of Made in Heaven' s 20th anniversary, Luxembourg & Dayan chose to present

17640-627: The spiritual and meditative power of the Rococo. Anticipating a less than generous critical response to his 1988 Banality series exhibition, with all of his new objects made in an edition of three, allowing for simultaneous, identical shows at galleries in New York, Cologne, and Chicago, Koons devised the Art Magazine Ads series (1988–1989). Placed in Artforum , Art in America , Flash Art , and Art News,

17780-427: The staff was laid off, a crew of two: Gary McCraw, Koons's studio manager, who had been with him since 1990, and Justine Wheeler, an artist from South Africa, who had arrived in 1995 and eventually took charge of the sculpture operation. The artist convinced his primary collectors Dakis Joannou , Peter Brant , and Eli Broad , along with dealers Jeffrey Deitch , Anthony d'Offay , and Max Hetzler , to invest heavily in

17920-519: The toys get a layer of coating after finding the right shape. Then a hard copy is made and sent to the foundry to be cast in aluminium. Back in the studio the sculptures are painted in order to achieve the shiny look of the original inflatables. For these surrealist installations, Acrobat in particular, Koons got inspiration from the Chicago Imagist H.C. Westermann . The Popeye sculpture was purchased by billionaire Steve Wynn for $ 28 million and it

18060-487: The trappings of success" and gave interviews "referring to himself in the third person". In 1989, the Whitney Museum and its guest curator Marvin Heiferman asked Koons to make an artwork about the media on a billboard for the show "Image World: Art and Media Culture". The billboard was meant as an advertisement for an unmade movie, entitled Made in Heaven. Koons employed his then-wife Ilona Staller (" Cicciolina ") as

18200-457: The use of ready-made objects and modes of display in his apartment in 1976. His fascination with the extravagant world of luxurious goods and their more affordable counterparts led him to collect items like toys, metallic finishes, leopard skin, and porcelain. Between 1977 and 1979 Koons produced four separate artworks, which he later referred to as Early Works. In 1978 he began working on his Inflatables series, consisting of inflatable flowers and

18340-635: The village of Yaanga . It became a part of the First Mexican Empire in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence . In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War , Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and became part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood . The discovery of oil in

18480-563: The work of John Baldessari and Bruce Nauman . Television executive Barry Lowen introduced Gagosian to Douglas S. Cramer , who introduced him to his ex-wife, Joyce Haber , who sold him her California art, which he promptly and profitably resold. In 1978, he opened his first gallery, on La Brea Avenue in West Hollywood , and began showing young Californians ( Vija Celmins , Chris Burden ) and new New Yorkers ( Eric Fischl , Cindy Sherman , Jean-Michel Basquiat ). That same year, he bought

18620-507: The world's largest by revenue; the city is an important site in the history of film . It also has one of the busiest container ports in the Americas. In 2018, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had a gross metropolitan product of over $ 1.0 trillion, making it the city with the third-largest GDP in the world, after New York and Tokyo . Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984 , and will also host in 2028 . Despite

18760-635: The worst rush hour periods in the world, according to an annual traffic index by navigation system maker, TomTom . LA drivers spend an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. During the peak rush hour, there is 80% congestion, according to the index. Los Angeles is often characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings, in contrast to New York City. Outside of a few centers such as Downtown , Warner Center , Century City , Koreatown , Miracle Mile , Hollywood, and Westwood , skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not common in Los Angeles. The few skyscrapers built outside of those areas often stand out above

18900-572: The year, with an average of only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually. Temperatures in the coastal basin exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days a month in July, August, October and to five days in September. Temperatures in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys are considerably warmer. Temperatures are subject to substantial daily swings; in inland areas

19040-497: Was 2.0 inches (5 cm) on January 15, 1932. While the most recent snowfall occurred in February 2019, the first snowfall since 1962, with snow falling in areas adjacent to Los Angeles as recently as January 2021. Brief, localized instances of hail can occur on rare occasions, but are more common than snowfall. At the official downtown station, the highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) on September 27, 2010, while

19180-473: Was born in York, Pennsylvania , to Henry Koons and Nancy Loomis. His father was a furniture dealer and interior decorator. His mother was a seamstress. When he was nine years old, his father would place old master paintings that Koons copied and signed in the window of his shop in an attempt to attract visitors. As a child he went door-to-door after school selling gift-wrapping paper and candy to earn pocket money. As

19320-503: Was first shown at the Palais des Papes in Avignon , France. Like Puppy , it is covered with around 27,000 live flowers, including petunias , begonias , impatiens , geraniums and marigolds . Weighing 150 tons and soaring over 37 feet high, Split-Rocker is composed of two halves: one based on a toy pony belonging to one of Koons's sons, the other based on a toy dinosaur. Together, they form

19460-494: Was formalized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ceded Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California to the United States. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become

19600-450: Was shot dead by ETA members. Currently the square in which the statue is placed bears the name of Aguirre. In the summer of 2000, the statue traveled to New York City for a temporary exhibition at Rockefeller Center . Media mogul Peter Brant and his wife, model Stephanie Seymour , commissioned Koons to create a duplicate of the Bilbao statue Puppy (1993) for their Connecticut estate,

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