Jeff Koons' 'Train' nowhere near its final destination, or even a start date

When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced plans in 2007 to build Jeff Koons' massive, multimillion-dollar "Train," the news quickly polarized the art community. Some said it would be a monumental and important work of art for L.A. Others decried it as a potential eyesore and a money pit.

Nearly three years on, "Train" appears to be nowhere near completion -- or even a start date for construction. LACMA told The Times that the project is still somewhere between the feasibility and design phases, and that the public won't see the finished artwork until 2014.

"Train" was initially scheduled to be completed in 2011 or 2012. Designs for the quasi-sculpture call for an approximately 70-foot replica of a 1943 Baldwin 2900-series steam locomotive, suspended vertically from a 161-foot-tall construction crane.

"Train" has a rumored price tag of $25 million, but the museum declined to disclose figures except to say that it is budgeted in the "many millions" of dollars. If the rumored cost is true, "Train" would be among the most expensive pieces of art ever commissioned by a museum.

John Bowsher, the museum's director of special art installations, said the next phases for "Train" involve two mock-ups: one involving a full-scale steam component that will test the size of the steam plume, and another dealing with the nose of the train engine that will use real materials to determine how easy it will be to meet the artist's standards.

Neither mock-up has begun yet, according to Bowsher. He also said that there is no start date for the construction of the project.

The museum said it has completed an imaging process that involves taking digital scans of an actual 1943 machine so that the new parts can be manufactured. However, it will take several additional months to put the digital scans together into an overall picture.

So far, the museum has a "small circle of people" working on the project in various capacities, according to Bowsher. It is also partnering with Carlson & Co., a local firm that has worked with Koons on previous projects.

LACMA said that Koons' original conception for "Train" has not changed since it was first announced. The project's feasibility study is being at least partially funded by a $2-million grant from the Annenberg Foundation.

Last week, The Times reported that the museum's investments dropped 23% in the last fiscal year. Donations to the museum also fell from $129.7 million to $29 million.

On Monday, a report from Bloomberg stated that "Train" could be canceled altogether if the museum doesn’t find the necessary funding. The LACMA spokesman did not confirm or deny that assertion. 

Currently, the museum has other projects competing for fund-raising attention, including LACMA West, a 70-year-old part of the campus that is being renovated as part of the museum's multi-year upgrading of its facilities.

-- David Ng

Photo: A design for Jeff Koons' proposed "Train." Credit: Jeff Koons Production Inc. / LACMA

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Comments

[boris8]

This is no great loss. It's a pretty bold piece, but it's also the kind of public art that you would get sick of after awhile.

[Robert Grenader]

Is this really art? What is to prevent the City of Seattle of comissioning a "replaca 747" from Boeing and suspending it from a 200' construction crane? Why stop there?

[Marshall]

Good news. This whole project stinks, on a variety of levels.

[Miguel]

As much as I love trains, this is a complete waste of money and time. There are plenty of steam locomotives in this country, and even here in California that are waiting to be restored to operating condition so they can become live interpretive exhibits that help tell the story of the rich history of railroads in this nation, their influence on western migration and the industrial revolution, and the settling and urban growth of Los Angeles and Southern California. There is nothing like showing your kids and grandkids a working, live, huffing and puffing full-size steam locomotive. $25 million could restore many, many locomotives and give them a good place to live as well. This kind of money for ONE exhibit that will never ever turn a wheel on a steel rail? You've got to be kidding.

[Steve]

LACMA - please keep trying to get this completed. This will be a landmark piece for LA. It will bring people to the museum for years.

[Donald Frazell]

To laugh at their stupidity.

Art Collegia Delenda Est
Without them, nothing this absutrd would ever be contenplated. Go to Lomita and the train msueum there for the real thing, get out of WLA, lazy kids.

[Donald Frazell]

$25 mil could restore the Watts/Rodia Towers forever, and add to the exhibition space. This is about art as rich boy entertainment, not art. Its for the decadence of WLA and WeHo, the Hills, and entertainment industry, not humanity. 99% of LA wont give a damn. And laugh when they see it. Got to Griffith Park and ride a train instead.

"fine" art colleges must be destroyed

[Jeff]

I would like to add my voice to the chorus of opposition to Michael Govan's leadership of LACMA. The blatant fiasco of Jeff Koons Train is simply another egregious example amongst a litany of failure.

More examples of his mis-steps: His shuttering of the beloved film program. Layoffs of staff while he maintains his princely salary. His focus on "international" artists over local and regional ones. (Isn't the name of the institution the Los Angeles County Museum of Art?) His planting of non-native palm trees outside BCAM in the midst of a city-wide effort to plant native shade trees.

But the worst--his obsession with Jeff Koons and his monstrous, cynical, and vapid Train. Untold millions of dollars have now been wasted on "preliminary engineering" for this eyesore. Money that should have been spent on the true mission of the museum, rather than hubris. Money that could have saved the the film program.

Read Govan's foreword to BCAM/LACMA/2008. It conveys the fresh off the boat perspective of a newcomer and outsider who has just been handed a copy of Mike Davis's "City of Quartz." Govan talks of Los Angeles as the "no place" and "every place" of myth. It's not surprising to see his denial of our city's cultural heritage, identity and sense of place.

Michael Govan go home.

[Don]

The only thing more asinine that "art" like this are the morons who pretend to understand it.
St. Louis has a rusty wall made of steel plate that is called "The Way" by Richard Serra, another parasite of public monies. It's been up for years and still the mavens think it's just spectacular, meanwhile people slip behind it for quickies at lunchtime, and the winos piss all over it. Maybe the winos have the best opinion after all.
Reminds me of what Mark Twain once said about abstract art. "It looks like a Tortoise Shell cat had a seizure in a plate of tomato sauce". Tell me he didn't know his art!
Ride this leech out of town on a rail (Pun intended)

[William Wray]

Couldn't Jeff just declare a real train art? Save money on making a copy, then hang that? To heavy I guess... Here an idea for free: sink a train halfway into one of the tar pits and throw in about half of the corny old contemporary art at LACMA.

[Tanya Smythe]

Hey Don
Nothing renders a statement meaningless as quickly as a really offensive misquote.
From Mark Twain's "A Tramp Abroad"; "A Boston newspaper reporter went and took a look at [Turner's] Slave Ship floundering about in that fierce conflagration of reds and yellows, and said it reminded him of a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes. In my then uneducated state, that went home to my non-cultivation, and I thought here is a man with an unobstructed eye. Mr. Ruskin would have said: This person is an ass. That is what I would say, now."
I think that means Mark Twain thinks you're a butt.

[William Wray]

I think Mark Twain thought trains were to ride in.

[Tanya Smythe]

By all means - let's pretend it's 1890 again.
Down with "corny old contemporary art"! Bring back the impressionists!
Now sucks.
(Oh and the Russian Constructivists thought trains were to ride in AND were also vehicles for art - that would have been in...1917...)

[Don]

Why thank you Tanya, you have made my point.

[William Wray]

Tanya there is no new art anymore.

While I like some Impressionism and all good painting, I’ll admit a lot of it is corny too. However, there are infinite applications for foundation-based art. For instance, learning to draw enhances your ability to do abstract art in a far more nuanced way. The journey from learning to doing representational art then stripping away the rules is a profound and difficult one that is key to finding the artists true Seasoned path. Most idea-based artists hide the knowledge of this truth in the guise of self- defensive dismissal that good drawing is somehow corrupting and regimental. That’s key to the big nothing art lie. Foundation never goes out of style, it’s how you apply it.
I don’t even think contemporary art makes sense as a title anymore. The empty flash of ideas without foundation in drawing has dominated for so long it’s creaky old school. Everyone’s rebuking against art that died a long time ago. Anyone who tries doing modern art with any skill today has to fight being ghettoized by the empty old fear dogs of nothing.
If we train a new generation to draw for the first time in 60 years we might have something new evolve from that, then the generation after than can legitimately tear down something.

[Wallfillers]

please keep trying to get this completed. This is a good news for all of us.

[Woody Tanaka]

What a tremendous shame if this wonderful piece was not completed. It would be a terrible if this project were stopped by people who can't or don't understand it.

[Don]

Good Lord, I just threw up a little in my mouth. Blood is shooting out of my eyes and I have to wrap duct tape around my head to contain the explosion.
You people deserve Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer!

[William Wray]

I kind of like Jeff's work; at least his sculpture has a form I can recognize. His paintings... Swirly junk jokes completed by assistants. However, I would like Woody to explain the hanging train. I think it's cool and all; I bet it would be nerve wracking to stand underneath it, but what does it mean Woody? Roll out the metaphors dude. Show me the articulate genius of you contemporary art fans. Take the contempt out of Contemporary for me bro. Oh and who is Don mad at ; everyone?

[Charles]

What a complete waste of money.... I could buy a new crane for under 3 million and hang an old used train from it for a total of less than 5-6 million tops....or get a used crane and paint it plus used crane and paint it..total tops 1 million....Give me half what they want to spend and I could give them a that pile of junk art....