Inflatable Balloon Flower (Yellow)
Jeff Koons b. 1955
1997
PVC, approx 1300 x 1280 x 1800 mm
edition of 100
signed and numbered on one petal: ‘Jeff Koons, 2 /100, ’97’
Published: Parkett Publishers for Parkett, Issue 50, 1997, Zurich
Condition: Accompanied by the original box, pump and installation documents from the artist
American artist Jeff Koons had his first solo show in 1980 at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Since that time he has become famous, or infamous, worldwide. His Balloon Flower (Magenta) (1995-2000), high-chromium stainless steel with transparent colour coating, 3400 x 2850 x 2600 mm, sold for $25.7 million at Christies, London in June 2008, and this saw Koons become briefly the world’s most expensive living artist.
Balloon Flower (Magenta) was part of Koons’ ‘Celebration’ series: a sequence of twenty different sculptures and sixteen paintings focussing on childhood experience and the celebratory moments in life. The Inflatable Balloon Flower (Yellow) 1997 edition of 100 works was created during the same period as Balloon Flower (Magenta). Both series feature absurdly oversized flowers that are placed directly on the ground. Huge petals and a stamen seem to spill out of the works. Instead of stainless steel and the faux-inflatable look of the larger works, Inflatable Balloon Flower (Yellow) occupies a more human scale and is seemingly more vulnerable in terms of this reduced size and its delicate materials.
The work is typical of Koons’ practice: both flowers and inflatables have always held a prominent role in his oeuvre. In 1979 the artist developed a series of inflatable balloon flowers that were placed on mirrors and later, in his notorious ‘Made in Heaven’ series, he included vases of flowers. Flowers embody the elements of life, vitality and reproduction that many of Koons’ works embrace. Regarding the materials, Koons has recently said: ‘I am still working with inflatables. And the inflatables, of course, are metaphors for people, and they are metaphors of life and optimism for me. The most deathlike image I know is of an inflatable that has collapsed - I try not to keep them around.’(Koons, quoted in Ruth Lopez (June 2008). ‘Conversation: Jeff Koons’. In Chicago mag.com. Retrieved July 12, from http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/June-2008/Conversation-JeffKoons/)