Jeff Koons: A Retrospective

While Koons’s previous art-historical references spanned decades or centuries, in Antiquity he looks across millennia to Paleolithic and classical precedents that evoke the themes of love, beauty, and desire. Yet even these ancient sources have been filtered through multiple lenses, as Koons’s newest works subtly acknowledge how the idea of classical sculpture has evolved and been re-created over time. His model for a work like Metallic Venus is not a Greek or Roman original, but a porcelain knickknack, itself likely based on a later copy. Koons marks his place in this chain of history by using CT scans and other forms of digital imaging to aid in translating his sources into stone or stainless steel, walking a fine line between high and low references, the original and the copy, the traditional and the startlingly new.