Jeff Koons: A Retrospective | Art & Artists

Koons cast this aqualung—an underwater breathing apparatus— in bronze using a complex process that required thirty separate molds to replicate the curves and textures of the original object. He hoped to demonstrate that he was capable of producing objects at the highest level of craftsmanship. Of course the casting that transformed the aqualung into a sculpture made it an image of certain death. With this contrast, Koons sought to remind viewers that, despite one’s best attempts to achieve a state of equilibrium in life, mortality is inevitable.

The stillness of this gravity-defying basketball continues to surprise viewers nearly thirty years after its debut. Koons could have created the effect by submerging the ball in a viscous liquid such as silicon, but he insisted on using water in order to maintain the purity of the sculpture and his viewer’s trust in it. In consultation with the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Richard P. Feynman, Koons realized that by first filling more than half the tank with a solution of highly refined salt and distilled water and then filling the ball itself with distilled water, the ball would float on the heavier substance; he then poured more distilled water into the top portion of the tank. This precise equilibrium, however, does not last forever. Temperature fluctuations and vibrations from viewers’ footsteps blend the solutions of water, ultimately causing the ball to sink. For Koons, the inevitability of this failure provides the work’s theme of perfect balance with a poignant counterpoint of instability.