Jeff Koons: A Retrospective

Koons has long been known for works that reinvent readymade sources and cross the wires between popular culture and art, as is evident in his most recent series, Gazing Ball. He took his inspiration from the plaster casts traditionally used to introduce students and museumgoers to antique statues in academies and towns that lacked genuine examples. Resting atop the plasters are hand-blown glass gazing balls, a type of suburban lawn ornament that Koons remembers from his childhood: “I grew up in Pennsylvania where people put gazing balls in their yard. They do it as a way of showing their generosity, at least I think of them that way. It’s being generous to your neighbors because it’s such a visual thing to do, almost like an extravagance. . . . I wanted to show my own history so I began to articulate more and more explicitly that accepting one’s own history is critical for any form of transcendence in life.”