Jeff Koons

JEFF KOONS

A NAUGHTY FLOWER

Jeff Koons challenges the notion of art as highbrow culture and instead creates works that are seductive compounds of advertising aesthetics, toys and kitsch.

Inflatable Balloon Flower (Yellow), 1997

Description
A big, round, yellow flower is placed on the museum floor. The soft, inflated shapes are buoyant  and almost transparent. The fragile exterior is increased by the enormous size; the flower is ready to burst.
 

About the work
Inflatable Balloon Flower (Yellow) resembles a toy spiked with growth hormones which have caused the balloon to mutate. The gargantuan size separates it from normal toys. It is luscious and attractive but also slightly uneasy, close to bursting from sheer vitality. As a matter of fact it seems like a fish out of water in a museum of art and better suited on the beach with other inflatables or in a smaller version as a balloon animal shaped by a man in the market..
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Koons' art in general
Koons' key words are desire, fascination, affect and allure. These terms decide whether he wants to work with a theme or an object. He picks the objects that characterise our everyday lives, thus enabling him to communicate with us in a straightforward manner, completely separate from modern art's usual elitist status.
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Literature
"Conversations: Volume I". (Hans Ulrich Obrist), Manuella Editions, 2008.
pp. 473-485
"Jeff Koons: Die Bilder 1980-2002", (Thomas Kellein), König, Köln, 2003
"Jeff Koons", (Lisa Dennison, Robert Rosenblum), Deutsche Guggenheim,
Berlin, 2000
"The Jeff Koons Handbook", Thames and Hudson, London, 1992