Jeff Koons
Ballon Dog Blue
2021

About the Item

Balloon Dog (Blue) by Jeff Koons, from the highly acclaimed Celebration series, is one of the most iconic works of the 20th century. In 1994, Jeff Koons embarked on the Celebration series, which is based on special events from the calendar year (birthdays, weddings, holidays…), which the artist isolates from their normal context and expands in order to create contemporary archetypes. The porcelain edition references the ten-foot tall stainless steel sculpture, Balloon Dog (1994-2000), which recreates a balloon, twisted into the shape of a dog, in painstaking detail on a monumental scale. The inflatable balloon evokes childhood memories and innocent playfulness; Koons takes an object that represents the fleeting pleasures of life and renders it permanent. Along with the innocence and simplicity of childhood, Koons’s work conveys a deeper symbolic meaning, as the artist explains, “It’s a very optimistic piece, it’s like a balloon that a clown would twist for you at a birthday party; but at the same time, it’s also a Trojan horse, the work has an interior life. It ties us to the present moment while at the same time to our ancient past. The exterior is totally reflective. It always reflects its environment, affirming the viewer. When you move the abstraction happens; nothing happens without you; it’s all about you. When you leave the room, the art leaves the room with you.” For nearly 160 years, Bernardaud has worked with the most skilled artisans at their workshop in Limoges and has created new technologies to achieve the porcelain limited editions made in collaboration with Jeff Koons. No detail was compromised in rendering Balloon Dog in porcelain. Bernardaud was challenged by the reflective surface, finessing the glaze techniques, and refining the process to create as smooth a finish as possible in porcelain.

Creator:
Jeff Koons (1955, American)
Creation Year:
2021
Dimensions:
Height: 15.75 in (40 cm)Width: 18.9 in (48 cm)Depth: 6.3 in (16 cm)
Medium:
Porcelain
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
2010-
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Porto, PT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2214212699972
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Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1955. He studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1976. Koons lives and works in New York City.

Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, Koons’s sculptures, prints and other works have been shown in major galleries and institutions throughout the world. His work was the subject of a major exhibition organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, "Jeff Koons: A Retrospective" (June 27 – October 19, 2014), which traveled to the Centre Pompidou Paris (November 26, 2014 – April 27, 2015) and the Guggenheim Bilbao (June 9 – September 27, 2015).

Other exhibitions include “Appearance Stripped Bare: Desire and Object in the Work of Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons, Even”; “Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean”; and “Jeff Koons. Shine” at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy. “Jeff Koons: Lost in America” was on view at QM Gallery ALRIWAQ in Doha, Qatar from November 21, 2021 through March 31, 2022.

Koons is widely known for his iconic sculptures Rabbit and Balloon Dog as well as the monumental floral sculpture Puppy (1992), shown at Rockefeller Center and permanently installed at the Guggenheim Bilbao. Another floral sculpture, Split-Rocker (2000), previously installed at the Papal Palace in Avignon, Château de Versailles, and Fondation Beyeler in Basel, was most recently on view at Rockefeller Center in 2014.

Koons has received numerous awards and honors in recognition of his cultural achievements. Notably, the artist received the Governor’s Awards for the Arts “Distinguished Arts Award” from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; President Jacques Chirac promoted Koons to Officier de la Legion d’Honneur; former United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton honored Koons with the State Department Medal of the Arts for his outstanding commitment to the Art in Embassies Program and international cultural exchange; and Consul General Ragini Gupta presented Koons the U.S. Consulate General’s Award for Cultural Diplomacy in Florence.

In 2017, Koons was made the first Artist-in-Residence at Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and, also, made an Honorary Member of University of Oxford's Edgar Wind Society for Outstanding Contribution for Visual Culture. Koons has been a board member of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) since 2002, and cofounded the Koons Family International Law and Policy Institute with ICMEC for the purpose of combating global issues of child abduction and exploitation and to protect the world’s children.

The authentic Jeff Koons art on 1stDibs includes sculptures, prints, mixed media and more.

(Biography provided by Galleri GKM Siwert Bergstrom)