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"Cake"
1955-1997
oil on canvas
approx. 10.5' x 10'
"Monumental in scale and simultaneously joyously effusive and somewhat menacing in spirit, Jeff Koons' Cake boldly announces the artist's conceptual intent and his obsession with craft and surface. The present work is a magnificent example of Koons' Celebration series: an ambitious body of sixteen 'photo-realist' paintings and twenty stainless steel sculptures that he began in 1994 which embrace a number of subjects that have preoccupied the artist for over twenty years: namely, the collision between the paradigms of 'High' and 'Low'; culturally, aesthetically, historically and socially. The Celebration series draws upon the symbols and objects associated with the observance of life's rituals, be they birthdays, holidays or other festive occasions. Indeed, these paintings and sculptures further Koons' preoccupation with the objects and experiences of, specifically, childhood in previous works. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the Brobdingnagian slice of cake he presents to us; a little slice of innocent life that, as always with Koons' searching eye and intellect, becomes darker, ominous even, in its hyper-realistic and hyperbolic presentation.
"....in the Koonsian universe, all is not what it seems, and nothing, certainly his choice of subject matter, is random. By depicting a slice of cake with a sugar-candy rose on it, one is instantly alerted to a number of contexts provided by the iconography of this flower. Graeco-Roman culture has the rose as a symbol of beauty, indicating the season of spring and love. Fittingly, however, it also speaks of the fleetness of time, inferring the passing from one world into the next (In Rome, the Feast of the Dead is called the Rosalia). Latin Christian iconography has the rose symbolic of Paradise, but also indicative of virtues and of categories for the Elect. The rose's status as 'Queen of Flowers' is indicated as a privileged symbol for the Virgin Mary - one need only think of the rosary, for example, to understand its lexical position within Christian iconography."
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"Balloon Dog"
1995-1998
high chromium stainless steel with
transparent color coating
approx. 8.5' x 12'
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"Balloon Swan"
high chromium stainless steel with
transparent color coating
approx. 11.5' x 8'
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"Balloon Rabbit"
2005-2010
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"Baroque Egg with Bow"
1994-2008
high chromium stainless steel with
transparent color coating
approx. 7' x 6.5' x 5'
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"Hanging Heart"
1994-2006
high chromium stainless steel with
transparent color coating
9' x 4'
3,500 pounds
*"Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold)" was auctioned at Sotheby's and sold for over 23 million dollars in 2007; at that time, it was the most expensive piece of art created by a living artist ever sold at auction.
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"Sacred Heart"
1994-2007
high chromium stainless steel with
transparent color coating
approx. 12' x 7' x 4'
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"Ribbon"
1995-1997
oil on canvas
approx. 8.5' x 12'
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"Pink Bow"
1995-1997
oil on canvas
approx. 9' x 11'
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"Coloring Book"
1997-2005
high chromium stainless steel
with transparent color coating
approx. 18.5' x 11' x .75'
This work was inspired by a page from a Winnie the Pooh coloring book. It is a facsimile of an illustration of Pooh’s friend, Piglet, and it's supposed to look like it's been colored in by a child in a haphazard fashion.
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"Diamond"
1994-2005
7' wide
From ArtNowOnline.com:
"Diamond (Blue) is the perfect, Disney-scaled engagement ring. Its vast, oversized, gleaming stainless steel format takes ‘bling-bling’ to ecstatic new levels but the sparkle is only skin deep. The highly polished chromium surface of this steel object reflects light, but does not refract it in the same way as a real diamond. Instead, this is what an imaginary blue diamond should be--it is an almost comicstrip archetype, a stereotype, a cliché that has burst into monumental existence in our world, speaking of wealth and luxury and awe in an open, sincere and deliberately uncritical manner."
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"Large Vase of Flowers"
1991
polychromed wood
approx. 4' x 3.5' x 3,5
*It sold for over 5.5 million dollars at Christie's in 2009. Here is a video of part of the auction.
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"Cracked Egg"
1994-2006
high chromium stainless steel with
transparent color coating
approx. 6' x 5' x 5' and 1' x 3' x 3'
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"Puppy"
1992
This topiary sculpture of a West Highland White Terrier is 43 feet tall and weighs 88 tons. It holds 60,000 flowers (inlcuding marigolds, begonias, impatiens, petunias, and lobelias) on its transparent, color-coated chrome stainless steel substructure. It has 114 separate irrigation systems running through it. Its permanent location is in Aguirre plaza outside the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum in Spain.
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