Jeff Koons: Versailles
From his studio in New York City, Jeff Koons discusses his 2008 exhibition at the Château de Versailles in France. Koons explores the power and sensuality of the grounds at Versailles, citing Louis Quatorze (Louis XIV) as an inspiration for his 1992 piece, Puppy, a large floral sculpture made out of 60,000 large flowers.
Credits
Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Martial Barrault & Joel Shapiro. Sound: Mark Mandler. Editor: Paulo Padilha & Mark Sutton. Artwork Courtesy: Jeff Koons. Special Thanks: L’Etablissement Public du musée et du domaine national de Versailles.
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Jeff Koons plucks images and objects from popular culture, framing questions about taste and pleasure. His contextual sleight-of-hand, which transforms banal items into sumptuous icons, takes on a psychological dimension through dramatic shifts in scale, spectacularly engineered surfaces, and subliminal allegories of animals, humans, and anthropomorphized objects. Organizing his own studio production in a manner that rivals a Renaissance workshop, Koons makes computer-assisted, handcrafted works that communicate through their meticulous attention to detail.
“You have this kind of very ethereal spiritual transcendence… But you also have this sense of transcendence through sexuality.”
Jeff Koons on Baroque and Rococo architecture
Inspiration & Influences
Art Changes Every Day
In this interview, Jeff Koons talks about his relationship with art, his exhibition at the Château de Versailles, and misrepresentations of his work.
