Jeff Koons in ‘David Zwirner: 25 Years’

Featuring live flowering plants, Jeff Koons’ huge mirror-polished stainless steel bluebird not only represents nature but brings it into the gallery. It’s part of David Zwirner Gallery’s 25-year anniversary exhibition, which includes work by many of the world’s best-known western contemporary artists and makes clear the scale of the gallery’s art world involvement. (On view at 537 West 20th Street and all Zwirner locations in Chelsea through Feb 17th.)

Jeff Koons, Bluebird Planter, mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent color coating and live flowering plants, 82 ½ x 115 x 41 ½ inches, 2010-2016.

Jeff Koons at Flag Art Foundation

At over ten feet tall, this polyethylene sculpture by Jeff Koons magnifies kitsch to its limits. Whether it’s a contemporary crucifixion, as Koons has said, a phallic symbol, as others have pointed out, or something else entirely, there’s more than meets the eye. (At Chelsea’s Flag Foundation through May 14th).

Jeff Koons, Cat on a Clothesline (Red), polyethylene, 123 x 110 x 50 inches, 1994-2001.
Jeff Koons, Cat on a Clothesline (Red), polyethylene, 123 x 110 x 50 inches, 1994-2001.

Jonathan Monk at Casey Kaplan Gallery

In a move bound to irk art-lovers who want to see hands-on art making, British conceptual artist Jonathan Monk riffed on Jeff Koons’ fabricated rabbit sculpture by copying it, slightly deflated in 2009. Now, he’s presenting a remake of that piece, but he worked from photos rather than actual measurements of the original, suggesting a tiny measure of creativity or freedom from exactitude. (At Chelsea’s Casey Kaplan Gallery through October 18th).

Jonathan Monk, A Copy of Deflated Sculpture No. 1, stainless steel, 40.5 x 23 x 15”, 2014.

Jeff Koons at the Whitney Museum

Jeff Koons’ name is synonymous with high production values and what the New York Times called ‘art for billionaires and oligarchs.’ Despite the exclusivity, most Koons works are designed to appeal, from the flowering sculpture currently installed at Rockefeller Center to this stainless steel heart and aluminum Playdoh pile at the Whitney Museum where the artist is currently enjoying a career retrospective. (Through October 19th).

Jeff Koons, Hanging Heart (Violet/Gold), 1994-2006, mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent color coating.

Jeff Koons’ ‘Balloon Flower,’ at 7 WTC, Manhattan

As New York galleries take a break in the final weeks of summer, New York Art Tours heads to the city’s parks and public places to enjoy our lively public art scene.  Here’s a sculpture that several of you mentioned when we toured Jeff Koons’ show of giant balloon dog sculptures this spring.  Koons’ ‘Balloon Flower’ outside of 7 WTC in downtown Manhattan is a hit with kids on this sunny summer day.  

Jeff Koons, Balloon Flower, mirror polish stainless steel with transparent color, installation view in park of 7 WTC, July 2013.