| | | | Jeff Koons |  | | In 2008, Jeff Koons became the first contemporary artist to show work at the Palace of Versailles. Featured image is "Split-Rocker" (2000). | |
| | | "In the mid-80s I was very impressed by Michael Jackson. He was very ambitious so I was impressed by that and curious about his self-transformation and how he would play with images such as himself against Bubbles. There is a sense of radicality, in that he was not going to wait for time, he wasn't going to wait for evolution: a sense of transformation, a sense of transcendence. He was too ambitious, to me. But the way I work, I don't really sit down and think about things in a very analytical way. I trust my intuition and I follow my interests, and I always find that when you focus on those interests, things become very metaphysical. So this is how I would conceive of a work in an intuitive way, and the narrative would develop around it when I would realize that I was presenting Michael Jackson as a Christ-like figure. The sculpture parallels the 'Pieta,' it has a classical, Renaissance, triangular composition." | | Jeff Koons, excerpted from Jeff Koons: Versailles, Editions Xavier Barral. |
| | FEATURED TITLEJeff Koons: Popeye SeriesForeword by Julia Peyton Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist. Text by Frederic Tuten, Arthur C. Danto, Dorothea von Hantelmann. Conversation with Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Jeff Koons' Popeye series, begun in 2002, incorporates some of the artist's signature themes and motifs: the surrealistic combination of everyday objects, cartoon imagery, outsized scale, art-historical references and children's toys. The sculptures reproduced here continue Koons' fondness for casting inflatable toys in aluminum—carefully painted to resemble supple plastic—which he juxtaposes here with unaltered everyday objects, such as chairs or garbage cans. The Popeye paintings are complex and layered compositions that combine disparate images both found and created by Koons (including images of the sculptures in the series). The instantly recognizable figures of Popeye and Olive Oyl are central, and recur across several key works within the book. Frederic Tuten, Arthur C. Danto and Dorothea von Hantelmann provide commentary on this fun body of work, which Koons discusses in a conversation with Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist. | |  |
LIST PRICE: U.S. $39.95
ISBN: 9783865606662
FORMAT: Pbk, 8.75 x 10 in. / 88 pgs / 37 color.
PUBLISHER: Walther König, Köln
PUBLICATION DATE: 10/31/2009 | Active
DISTRIBUTION: | RETAILER DISC: TRADE | |
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FEATURED TITLEJeff KoonsText by Gudrun Inboden, Anette Hüsch.
Jeff Koons' newest paintings combine high pixelation of sexual imagery with gestural paint splashes, in an erotic rampage that bursts off the canvas, energized by a friction between photography, painting and digital media. In part an homage to Courbet's "Origin of theWorld," these works argue for the flourishing of libido and aim to make a direct hit upon their viewer: "My work will use everything that it can to communicate. It will use any trick, I'll do anything- absolutely anything-to communicate and to win the viewer over," says the artist. Offsetting this quasi-religious solicitousness is Koons' usual great degree of care in the layering of images, and the pixelated imagery that compels the viewer to stand back some way to process it. (For Koons, pixelation too is a sign of authenticity.) This beautifully produced edition presents five of these new paintings printed on tipped-in color plates. | |  |
LIST PRICE: U.S. $40.00
ISBN: 9783935567497
FORMAT: Clth, 12 x 12.25 in. / 36 pgs / 12 color.
PUBLISHER: Holzwarth Publications
PUBLICATION DATE: 2/28/2010 | Active
DISTRIBUTION: | RETAILER DISC: TRADE | |
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| FEATURED TITLEJeff Koons: VersaillesForeword by François Pinault. Text by Jena-Pierre Criqui, Edouard Papet, Michel Houellebecq, Béatrix Saule.
This volume presents a marriage made in camp heaven--the splendid extravagance of the palace of Versailles as a backdrop for the gregarious, loud and equally extravagant sculptures of contemporary American Pop artist Jeff Koons, who mounted the first contemporary art exhibition ever in the apartments of the king in September 2008. What other artist could match Louis XIV's love of the saccharine gesture? Sugared up to the max, Koons here counterposes Versailles' rich detail with his more simplified forms, including a monumental red chocolate-box-style heart, balloon dog and suspended red aluminum lobster. Other works outdo Versailles for kitsch, such as Koons' marble self-portrait, playfully sited amid busts of Louis XIV, his infamous "Michael Jackson and Bubbles" sculpture and his ever-cryptic bare-breasted blonde clutching the Pink Panther. Yet others, such as the large vase of flowers, blend seamlessly with the decor. Needless to say, accusations of irreverence have abounded, but Koons avows only respect for the venue and has testified that he has drawn inspiration for his floral sculptures from the "fantasy and control" shown by Louis XIV himself. The degree of sympathy is as hard to contest as the edge of parody: Asked why he installed his vitrine of vacuum cleaners among the portraits of royalty in the Queen's antechamber, Koons replied that, among other things, vacuum cleaners are "very womblike." This monograph records each of the 17 works as exhibited and is supplemented with texts by Jean-Jacques Aillagon, chairman of Versailles and a former French culture minister, and controversial French novelist Michel Houellebecq, among others. | |  |
LIST PRICE: U.S. $85.00
ISBN: 9782915173413
FORMAT: Clth, 11 x 13 in. / 192 pgs / 97 color.
PUBLISHER: Editions Xavier Barral
PUBLICATION DATE: 3/1/2009 | Active
DISTRIBUTION: | RETAILER DISC: TRADE | |
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| VISUAL BOOK INDEX | JEFF KOONS |
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