The Balloon Dog and the Celebration series
Jeff Koons, Celebration, 2013. Credits: Gagosian
Jeff Koons‘ Balloon Dogs are part of his famous 1994 Celebration series, constituted of party objects, polished and shiny. The series is composed of about 20 large-scale sculptures, as well as about 15 oil paintings. Interested in the theme of nostalgia, Jeff Koons presents inflatable animals, but also Play-Doh, tulips, or even easter eggs. His sculptures bring one back to the simpler times of childhood and celebrate the joy of celebration through the monumental.
Koons proclaims himself an « idea man »; he imagines his work before having it made in his studio by other people. Each of his sculptures is made with great precision from stainless steel and finished with a blue, magenta, orange, red or yellow translucent coating. Elementary colors which show that Koons is not afraid of the characteristic simplicity of his art.
Jeff Koons in his studio, 1997. Credits: Ellen Von Unwerth/Art+Commerce
The idea of reflection is at the core of Jeff Koons’ inspiration and career. He explains that he has always been fascinated with light and how it reflects on surfaces. He also states that he has always worked with inflatable and reflecting surfaces.
According to the artist, his biggest sources of inspiration are Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. It is often said that Jeff Koons’ work is close to Pop Art, an art movement that used everyday objects turned into provocative art. Koons familiarizes himself with the work of Salvador Dali very early on and started painting following his methods. Today, he is often compared to his contemporary, Damien Hirst.
Balloon Dogs are not the only balloon sculptures by Koons. Below you can see other noteworthy Koons balloon animal sculptures from recent years.
Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog (Magenta), 1994-2000, Château de Versailles, Versailles, France. Photo by Marc Wathieu via Flickr.
There are five of Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dogs. They measure 307.3 × 363.2 × 114.3 cm. Each work is made from precision engineered, mirror-polished, stainless steel and finished with a translucent coating of either blue, magenta, orange, red, or yellow.
What do Jeff Koons, Jay Z, Christie’s, and clowns have in common? Balloon dogs! Read how an artwork looking like a huge toy hit $58.4M at a Christie’s auction, becoming one of the most expensive artworks by a living artist ever sold at an auction.
The stainless steel orange sculpture with transparent color coating is one of the first balloon dogs. It looks like the kind of souvenir clowns make at birthday parties. Other pups have been on display around the world in red, green, and blue — not to mention a shiny pink one that made it to Versailles in 2008.
Artist Abstract: Who Is Jeff Koons?
Jeffrey Lynn Koons is an American artist who was born on 21 January 1955, in York, Pennsylvania, where he also lives and works, including New York City. He painted from an early age having been inspired by Salvador Dalí. Koons studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a Contemporary artist well-known for his large-scale sculptures that are Pop-Cultural icons depicting items of mass media, such as toys, birthday gifts, ornaments, and various other paraphernalia we would find in stores.