Neue Kunstspaziergänge

Am 10. November wird in New York Jeff Koons „Balloon Flower“ im Auktionshaus Christie’s versteigert. Die Skulptur gehört der Daimler Art Collection und stand viele Jahre in Berlin.

Koons’s Balloon Flower is, in particular, marked by its openness, both formal and conceptual, its giddy embrace of high and low and simple pleasures. In a sense, his overblown balloon toy allows the viewer to re-experience a childlike sense of awe and wonder. The glossy shine of the sculpture operates in a way by appealing to the most regressive, instinctive, even infantile impulse of pleasure, allows us to indulge in a purely sensory satisfaction. An overtly erotic charge is also at the heart of Koons’s unabashedly sensuous Balloon Flower. Its petals form an orifice-like fulcrum from which an erect shape protrudes – although whether it is a pistil or stamen, the floral equivalent of a male or female sexual element, remains tantalizingly ambiguous. Moreover, the sculpture’s curving, swollen forms suggest a sexually aroused and inviting body. For the artist, however, eroticism also has a spiritual dimension, as he sees it as a primal life force. As he declared,“Sexuality is the principal object of art. It’s about the preservation of the species. Procreation is a priority. But this also has a spiritual aspect for me. It’s about the way that we have children“ (H. Bellet, „Jeff Koons: La Sexualité, c’est l’objet principal de l’art“, Le Monde, 30 August 2005).
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