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78-455: 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

156-672: 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

234-755: 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

312-421: 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

390-542: 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

468-632: 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

546-775: A "Crayon by Number" version. The first patent for the paint-by-number technique was filed in 1923. Paint by Number in its popular form was created by the Palmer Show Card Paint Company. The owner of the company approached employee Dan Robbins with the idea for the project. After several iterations of the product, the company in 1951 introduced the Craft Master brand, which went on to sell over 12 million kits. This public response induced other companies to produce their own versions of painting by number. The Craft Master paint kit box tops proclaimed, "A BEAUTIFUL OIL PAINTING THE FIRST TIME YOU TRY." Following

624-468: 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

702-468: 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

780-552: 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,

858-452: 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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936-429: 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

1014-422: 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

1092-583: 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,

1170-535: 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 the series reference art from

1248-441: 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

1326-404: 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

1404-443: 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

1482-605: 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

1560-561: 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

1638-582: 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 a much smaller studio space. He now uses technology to create his artistic references on computers and color-corrects them until he

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1716-624: 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

1794-553: 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,

1872-626: 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

1950-724: 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

2028-595: A way to inspire society. This endeavor, which included plans for larger sculptures on Earth and corresponding NFTs , aimed to be the first authorized artwork on the moon, protected under the Artemis Accords . Balloon animals Two primary design styles are "single balloon modelling", which restricts itself to the use of one balloon per model, and "multiple balloon modelling", which uses more than one balloon. Each style has its own set of challenges and skills, and most twisters practise both styles. Depending on

2106-425: 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

2184-471: 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

2262-428: 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

2340-404: 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

2418-676: 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

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2496-530: 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

2574-624: 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

2652-567: 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

2730-499: 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

2808-413: 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

2886-507: 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

2964-615: 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,

3042-568: 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

3120-650: 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

3198-497: 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

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3276-652: The Bridgewater/Lustberg Gallery. After O'Donoghue's death in 1994, the Smithsonian Institution 's National Museum of American History exhibited many key pieces from O'Donoghue's collection, now owned by Speegle, along with works from other collectors in 2001. In 2008, a private collector in Massachusetts assembled over 6,000 paint-by-number works dating back to the 1950s from eBay and other American collectors to create

3354-519: The Clown" Art Petri credits "Herman Bonnert from Pennsylvania at a magician's convention in 1939" as being the first balloontwister. Val Andrews, in Manual of Balloon Modeling, Vol. 1, An Encyclopedic Series , credits H.J. Bonnert of Scranton, Pennsylvania as being the "daddy of them all". Jim Church III states, "Frank Zacone from Youngstown, Ohio was doing a balloon act during the 1940s and had been doing

3432-516: 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),

3510-555: 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

3588-517: The Paint By Number Museum, the world's largest online archive of paint-by-number works. In 2011, the Museum of Modern Art in New York accepted four early designs of paint by number by Max Klein for its Department of Architecture and Design, donated by Jacquelyn Schiffman. In May 2011, Dan Robbins and Palmer Paint Products, Inc., together developed and brought to market a new 60th-anniversary paint-by-number set. This collectors set

3666-442: The act for some time." Another candidate for first balloon twister is Henry Maar . Modellers will use an assortment of balloons, usually in various colors . Balloon sizes are usually identified by a number: the most common size of twisting balloons is called a "260", as it is approximately two inches in diameter and 60 inches long. Thus, a "260" is 2×60 inches and a "160" is 1×60 inches when fully blown up. Although these are

3744-558: 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

3822-478: 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

3900-560: The color corresponding to one of the numbers then uses it to fill in a delineated section of the canvas, in a manner similar to a coloring book . The kits were invented, developed and marketed in 1950 by Max S. Klein, an engineer and owner of the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit, Michigan, United States, and Dan Robbins, a commercial artist. When Palmer Paint introduced crayons to consumers, they also posted images online for

3978-458: 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

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4056-527: 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

4134-581: The death of Max Klein in 1993, his daughter Jacquelyn Schiffman donated the Palmer Paint Co. archives to the Smithsonian Museum of American History . The archival materials have been placed in the museum's Archives Center where they have been designated collection #544, the "Paint by Number Collection". In 1992, Michael O'Donoghue and Trey Speegle organized and mounted a show of O'Donoghue's paint-by-number collection in New York City at

4212-476: 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

4290-427: 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

4368-464: 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

4446-507: 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

4524-453: 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

4602-629: 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

4680-449: 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

4758-408: The more common 260s, as their narrowness requires a great deal more strength and breath pressure to inflate. Paint by number Paint by number or painting by numbers kits are self-contained painting sets, designed to facilitate painting a pre-designed image. They generally include brushes , tubs of paint with numbered labels, and a canvas printed with borders and numbers. The user selects

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4836-457: The most common sizes used, there are dozens of other shapes available as well. The most common methods for inflation are air pumps similar to bicycle pumps , electric air compressors , and the mouth. Inflating a balloon with the mouth is difficult and can be dangerous. Particularly well-trained and talented twisters, however, can blow-up several balloons at once, and some can even blow up 160s, which are much more difficult to mouth-inflate than

4914-458: The needs of the moment, they might easily move between the one-balloon or multiple approaches, or they might even incorporate additional techniques such as "weaving" and "stuffing". Modelling techniques have evolved to include a range of very complex moves, and a highly specialized vocabulary has emerged to describe the techniques involved and their resulting creations. Some twisters inflate their balloons with their own lungs, and for many years this

4992-400: 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

5070-565: 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,

5148-446: 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

5226-563: 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

5304-531: 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

5382-491: 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

5460-646: 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,

5538-427: 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

5616-524: 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

5694-489: 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

5772-456: 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

5850-529: Was a standard and necessary part of the act. However, many now use a pump of some sort, whether it is a hand pump, an electric pump plugged in or run by a battery pack, or a compressed gas tank containing air or nitrogen. Twisters do not generally fill their creations with helium, as these designs will not usually float anyway. The balloons for twisting are too porous for helium and the designs are generally too heavy for their size for helium to lift. The origins of balloon modelling are unknown. The 1975 book by "Jolly

5928-473: 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

6006-510: 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

6084-451: 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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