Jeff Koons
Popeye 2003
Oil on canvas
274.3 x 213.4 cm
Collection of the Artist
© 2008 Jeff Koons
SERPENTINE GALLERY, LONDON
JEFF KOONS: POPEYE SERIES
OPENING JULY 2 THROUGH SEPTEMBER 13, 2009
The Serpentine Gallery presents an exhibition of the work of the celebrated American artist Jeff Koons, his first major exhibition in a public gallery in England. For his exhibition at the Gallery, Koons presents paintings and sculptures from his Popeye series, which he began in 2002. Working in thematic series since the early 1980s, Koons has explored notions of consumerism, taste, banality, childhood and sexuality. He is known for his meticulously fabricated works that draw on a variety of objects and images from American and consumer culture. The works in this show incorporate some of Koons’s signature ideas and motifs, including surreal combinations of everyday objects, cartoon imagery, art-historical references and children’s toys. The sculptures continue Koons’s interest in casting inflatable toys. Those typically used by children in a swimming pool are cast in aluminium, their surfaces painted to bear an uncanny resemblance to the original objects. He juxtaposes these replica readymades with unaltered everyday objects, such as chairs or rubbish bins. The paintings are complex and layered compositions that combine disparate images both found and created by Koons, including images of the sculptures in the series. Featuring loans from both public and private collections, the exhibition also includes works that have never been shown publicly before. The immediately recognizable figures of Popeye and Olive Oyl are central in the series and appear in several prominent works within the exhibition. One of the most iconic American comic strip characters, Popeye was conceived 80 years ago this year in 1929 when the Great Depression was taking hold. In Popeye’s early years, the cartoon addressed the hardships and injustices of the time and, in this current period of economic recession, he is a fitting character to rediscover and explore. Koons has used inflatables in his work since the late 1970s; one of his most iconic sculptures, Rabbit, 1986, is an inflatable bunny rendered in reflective stainless steel. He has also made sculptures on a spectacular scale inspired by inflatables, including works from his monumental Celebration series. Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1955 and currently lives and works in New York.
