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Jeff Koons
Seated Ballerina
April 14 to September 7, 2016
Presentation: Thuesday April 14, 1PM
Led by Eduardo F. Costantini and Jeff Koons
Free public event. Esplanade.
Next Thursday April 14, MALBA presents the work Seated Ballerina (2015) by Jeff Koons (York, Pennsylvania, 1955). During the inaugural presentation, the celebrated American artist will be present. This is the first time a sculpture by Koons is exhibited in the public space in Argentina.
Seated Ballerina is a larger-than-life sculpture by Jeff Koons. Koons, long known for works that reinvent readymade sources, took inspiration from a small porcelain ballerina figurine utilizing cutting edge technology.
Since his emergence in the 1980s, Jeff Koons has blended the concerns and methods of Pop, Conceptual, and the readymade with craft-making and popular culture to create his own unique iconography, often controversial and always engaging. His work explores contemporary obsessions with sex and desire; race and gender; and celebrity, media, commerce, and fame. These themes are fused through the iconography and materials used in his creations, whose painstaking finishes are achieved with the help of his studio and skilled fabricators, an invaluable tool for the artist. Focusing on some of the most unexpected objects as models for his work, Koons' works eschew typical standards of "good taste" in art and zero in rather precisely on the vulnerabilities of hierarchies and value systems.
Seated Ballerina is one of Koons’s latest sculpture in his Antiquity series, begun in 2008. The series explores themes such as beauty, fertility, love, and the connectivity in the artistic dialogue that spans the history of man. Of Seated Ballerina, Jeff Koons observes: “Ballerina is like a Venus. You could be looking at a Venus of Willendorf or some of the oldest Venuses. It is really about beauty and even a sense of contemplation, a sense of ease”.
The Esplanade Program is presented by Fate.
With the support of the Embassy of the United States in Argentina and Palacio Duhau - Park Hyatt Buenos Aires.
Esplanade Program
Seated Ballerina by Jeff Koons continues the Esplanade Program initiated during the founding of the museum in 2001 and reactivated in September 2015 with La democracia de un símbolo, a site-specific work by Leandro Erlich. The esplanade of the museum is a central exhibition space for conducting large-scale works specially designed and produced for this place or to display relevant projects of great contemporary artists. Since its founding, MALBA made five different projects:
2003 – Penetrable, by Jesús Soto (Ciudad Bolívar, 1923 - París, 2005)
2004 – Serie Elípticas, by Artur Lescher (Sao Paulo, 1962)
2005 – Tiempo como actividad, by David Lamelas (Buenos Aires, 1946)
2006 – Volumen, by Sergio Avello (Mar del Plata 1964 – Buenos Aires, 2010).
2015 – La Democracia del Símbolo, by Leandro Erlich (Buenos Aires, 1973)
Seated Ballerina
Seated Ballerina, 2010-2015
mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent color coating
83 x 77 5/8 x 42 7/8 inches 210.82 x 197.21 x 106.68 cm
© Jeff Koons
Oceana Bal Harbour Collection. Miami, EE.UU. Consultatio.
Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania in 1955. He is one of the world’s most influential artists, known for creating such icons as Rabbit and Balloon Dog. Working with everyday objects, his work revolves around themes of self-acceptance and transcendence.
Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, Koons’s work has been shown in major galleries and institutions throughout the world. His work is 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 12 - September 27, 2015). His public sculptures, such as the monumental floral Puppy and Split-Rocker, have captivated audiences at Rockefeller Center New York, Chateau Versailles, the Papal Palace Avignon, and the Guggenheim Bilbao. Recent exhibitions in Europe include Jeff Koons in Florence installed at Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy (September 25 - December 28, 2015) and Balloon Venus (Orange), which was on view in the rotunda of the Natural History Museum Vienna, Austria (September 30 - March 13, 2016). Gazing Ball Paintings, the most recent series by Koons, was exhibited at Gagosian Gallery, New York (November 12 - December 23, 2015).
Koons has received numerous awards and honors in recognition of his cultural achievements. He is an Officier of the Legion d’Honneur, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Honorary Royal Academician, and holds honorary doctorates from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Corcoran College of Art and Design, Washington, DC. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented Koons with the State Department’s Medal of the Arts for his outstanding commitment to the Art in Embassies Program and international cultural exchange. Koons has been a board member of The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) since 2002, and co-founded 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.
Jeff Koons lives and works in New York City.
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