Jeff Koons - Fondation Beyeler

Press Release 

Jeff Koons 

13 May – 2 September 2012 

The Fondation Beyeler is presenting the first exhibition ever devoted by a Swiss museum to 

the American artist Jeff Koons (b. 1955). Koons, likely the best-known living artist, has for 

decades been causing a furore with the combination of popular and high culture that informs 

his art. 

Our extensive presentation focuses on three central series of works – The New, Banality and 

Celebration – which represent crucial stages in Koons’s development and lead to the nucleus 

of his thinking and creative activity. The New comprises the ready-made-like cleaning applicances 

of his early period, symbols of newness and purity. Banality includes those traditionnally 

crafted sculptures in porcelain and wood which have since become (post-) modern 

icons. Finally, in the Celebration series, on which Koons has been working for almost twenty 

years, appear high-gloss steel sculptures of unique material perfection, and large-format 

paintings in which the artist celebrates childhood in a veritably baroque way. 

Koons’s equally spectacular and subtle works are repeatedly concerned with themes such as 

innocence, beauty, sexuality and happiness. These reflect his conception of an art that is 

accessible to every viewer. 

In parallel with the exhibition, Jeff Koons’s monumental floral sculpture Split-Rocker, 

composed of thousands and thousands of real plants and introducing a unique dialogue 

between art and nature, will be installed in the Fondation Beyeler park. 

The exhibition is curated by Sam Keller, Director, and Theodora Vischer, Senior Curator at 

Large, at the Fondation Beyeler. 

The following lenders have contributed materially to the success of the exhibition: Jeff Koons; 

The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut; The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica; 

Des Moines Art Center; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; The Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann 

Collection; Prada Collection, Milan; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; The Sonnabend 

Collection; Tate / National Galleries of Scotland; Whitney Museum of American Art, New 

York. 

The catalogue, in German and English, is published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern. It 

contains a foreword by Sam Keller and Theodora Vischer, an interview with the artist, and 

essays by Raphaël Bouvier and Günther Vogt. 212 pages, 154 illustrations, CHF 68. ISBN 

978-3-906053-00-4 (German), ISBN 9878-3-906053-01-1 (English). 

The exhibition enjoys the generous support of Mercedes Benz and Hugo Boss. 

The outdoor sculpture Split Rocker was made possible by a substantial contribution from JTI 

as principal partner, as well as the support of Simone and Peter Forcart-Staehelin and 

InCentive Asset Management AG.

Press images available at: http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch 

Further information: 

Andrea Tedeschi, Head of Public Relations 

Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 21, presse@fondationbeyeler.ch, www.fondationbeyeler.ch 

Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen, Switzerland 

Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10.00 am to 6.00 pm, Wednesdays to 8.00 pm

Press Release 


13 May – 2 September 2012 

Jeff Koons (b. 1955) is one of the best known contemporary artists, whose work has repeatedly 

caused a furore since the 1980s. He has been especially renowned for works that call the conventional 

distinction between art and kitsch into question. The Fondation Beyeler is presenting the first 

Koons exhibition ever held in a Swiss museum. 

From the start Koons worked in terms of chronological series of pieces, each with its own title. 

Taken together, these series titles provide an overview of his artistic conception. Our extensive 

show comprises about 50 works from three central groupings that represent crucial steps in 

Koons's development and pursue the unusual path, combining popular and high culture, which the 

object has taken and is still taking in his oeuvre. 

The three series selected together with the artist for exhibition are The New (1980-87), Banality 

(1988) and Celebration (from 1994). 

The exhibition spans a wide arc from The New, the young artist's early series, to Celebration, to 

which new pieces are still being added today. In between we find Banality, an influential grouping 

with a manifesto-like character and crucial for Koons's self-definition as an artist. Taken together, 

these three series reflect the core of Koons's thinking and the internal cohesion of the entire 

oeuvre, something that tends to be obscured by the system of groups of works with their separate 

titles. 

In The New, which would become determinant for the artist's development, he purposely focused 

on factory-new, unused vacuum cleaners and carpet cleaning appliances of the Hoover brand, 

which, placed over flourescent tubes, are encased in plexiglass cases. In this way, the objects 

create an impression of cleanliness and seductive value, embodying the ideal of newness. Basic 

themes of this series are integrity, innocence and purity -- values that run through Koons's oeuvre 

as a whole. In terms of their stringent arrangement and placement on fluorescent lights, these 

objects recall Minimal Art. 

Yet Koons is also one of the artists who have taken up the discussion on objects launched by 

Duchamp at the start of the twentieth century with his ready-mades. He has advanced this discussion 

in an original and masterfully brilliant way. 

From The New series, the exhibition presents thirteen works, including a display window installation, 

reconstructed with the original vacuum cleaners, that was on view in 1980 at The New 

Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. In this series, the celebration of newness finds 

expression not only in the vacuum cleaner works but in the programmatic The New Jeff Koons 

(1980), comprising a lighted box with a black and white photo of the artist as a boy. The young 

Koons's self-confidence had already become evident by this time. 

The advertising posters Koons employed for his silkscreen prints reflect his special interest in 

commercial imagery and visual strategies. In combination with the showcase objects, they 

immediately confront the viewer with the basic message of the series and the artist's fascination 

with the manipulative potential of images and their presentation, as well as his intention to make

the work of art as accessible to the viewer as possible. As an image on canvas, the lithograph 

New! New Too! (1983) is an early indicator of Koons's concern with monumental painting, which 

would come to fruition years later, in the Celebration series. 

The ready-made-like everyday objects in The New metamorphosed in Banality into strange and 

provocative sculptures in wood, porcelain and mirrored glass, made by traditional crafts methods. 

Their motifs were taken equally from art history and popular culture, and collaged into innovative 

figures with a Baroque-oriented aesthetic. With the much-acclaimed Banality series, the artist not 

only placed the definition of art on a new foundation but advanced to become a star of the 

international art scene. 

The exhibition includes sixteen sculptures and reliefs, a major portion of the series of twenty sculptural 

figures. The motifs in Banality stem from a wide range of imagery from Renaissance and 

Baroque art, popular magazines, and the world of toys and postcards.The initial motif is modified 

such that the figures run through a transformation in terms of change of scale, medium or material 

which lends them new potentials of interpretation. 

The guiding idea behind Banality is the self-acceptance of the viewer conveyed by ostensibly banal 

things. This idea is embodied in the polychrome, quasi-religious wood sculpture Ushering in 

Banality (1988), which as it were manifests the banal as Koons's fundamental ideal. 

A further theme of the Banality series is the association between human and animal that characterizes 

many of the works, for instance Stacked. As a group, the Banality figures add up to an 

overall image that illustrates Koons's approach in the form of a veritable program of redemption 

and his intention to art that is understandable, accessible and edifying for all. Still, his subject 

matter is less religious in nature than aimed at raising universal, existential questions of human 

existence. The entire visual program of Banality is based on the concepts of innocence and guilt, 

and aims through aesthetic means at a forgiveness of sins and a dissolution of the notion of guilt in 

general. This is reflected in a frequent recourse to saints or figures associated with sacredness, 

such as the sculpture Buster Keaton consisting of mounted wood. The imposing porcelain sculpture 

of Michael Jackson and Bubbles, to which the artist refers as a contemporary Pietà, has since 

become a modern icon. The piece reflects Koons's ideal of an art that reconciles all oppos-tions to 

reach as large an audience as possible. 

In Banality, the artist's interest in materials and surfaces acquires an especially symbolic dimension. 

The aesthetic effect of the material always goes hand in hand with its emotional effect. By 

means of the material, whether porcelain, wood or chrome steel, Koons appeals to viewers' emotions 

and attempts to meet their desires. With the employment of mirrored glass in Christ and the 

Lamb and Wishing Well, finally, he had recourse to a material -- like the chrome steel before -- 

whose reflecting quality draws us directly into the work and, to this extent, compellingly manifests 

Koons's basic conception of an accessible art. 

The Celebration series represents Koons's most ambitious series to date, intended to comprise 

twenty large-scale sculptures in perfectly crafted stainless steel and sixteen large-format paintings. 

The exhibition includes ten of these paintings. In Celebration, the artist addresses things familiar 

and transitory, children and childhood, in motifs that call to mind children's birthdays and holiday 

customs, yet whose monumental sculptural forms are simultaneously stylized into the iconic. In 

terms of style, Celebration represents something in the nature of a synthesis between the minimalist 

aesthetic of The New and the Baroque opulence of Banality, and links up with the involvement 

with childhood seen in earlier series. Attributes from children's birthday appear in Party Hat 

(1995-97) and Cake (1995-97), in the balloon figures Balloon Dog (Red) (1994-2000), Tulips 

(1995-98), and Moon (Light Pink) (1995-2000). Gift or toy articles form the motif of the brilliant 

painting Play-Doh (1995-2007) and in Shelter (1996-98). Especially compelling is the monumental 

sculpture Hanging Heart (Gold/Magenta) (1994-2006), in high-alloy chrome steel. With Cracked 

Egg (Blue) (1994-2006), a reference to Easter, religious motifs play a role in

Celebration as well. While the apparently fragile Celebration figures seem supple and weightless, 

they are actually stable, hard and weigh tons. 

In Celebration, Koons not only developed his sculptural language further but took a step into 

painting, which appeared for the first time on an equal footing with sculpture in his oeuvre. The 

paintings in the series are based on arrangements of real objects created by the artist, photographed, 

and reworked by means of a complex process of schematization, then considerably 

enlarged and transferred to canvas. The central motif is placed in front of draped, reflecting foil in 

which certain parts of the object are reflected many times over, usually in distorted form. The 

aesthetic effect of the paintings, which owe much to Pop Art, is determined by their "objective", 

virtually hyper-realistic approach. 

Evident in the Celebration series is the mutability of objects in terms of medium that is characteristic 

of Koons's art, as well as a spectacular, quite unprecedented interaction between painting and 

sculpture. In Celebration, the interaction of media -- object art, sculpture and painting -- comes to 

full flower in the artist's oeuvre for the first time. 

Two sculptures will be on view in Berower Park at the Fondation Beyeler: in the pond in the 

northern area of the park, Balloon Flower (Blue) (1995-2000), and in the park's front area, the 

monumental floral sculpture Split-Rocker (2000). Please see the attached press release. 

The following lenders have contributed materially to the success of the exhibition: Jeff Koons; The 

Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut; The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica; Des Moines 

Art Center; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; The Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann Collection; Prada 

Collection, Milan; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; The Sonnabend Collection; Tate / National 

Galleries of Scotland; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. 

The exhibition is curated by Sam Keller, Director, and Theodora Vischer, Senior Curator at Large, 

Fondation Beyeler. 

The catalogue, in German and English, is published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern. It contains a 

foreword by Sam Keller and Theodora Vischer, an interview with the artist, and essays by Raphaël 

Bouvier and Günther Vogt. 212 pages, 154 illustrations, CHF 68. ISBN 978-3-906053-00-4 

(German), ISBN 9878-3-906053-01-1 (English). 

The exhibition enjoys the generous support of Mercedes Benz and Hugo Boss. 

The outdoor sculpture Split-Rocker was made possible by a substantial contribution from JTI as 

principal partner, as well as the support of Simone and Peter Forcart-Staehelin and InCentive Asset 

Management AG. 




Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 21, presse@fondationbeyeler.ch, www.fondationbeyeler.ch 

Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen, Switzerland 

Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10.00 am to 6.00 pm, Wednesdays to 8.00 pm

Press Release 

Split Rocker, 2000/2012 

From May until autumn 2012 

Split-Rocker, a colossal floral sculpture by the American artist Jeff Koons (b. 1955), comprising 

thousands and thousands of real plants, will be on view in the Fondation Beyeler park. The sculp- 

ture continues the compelling dialogue between art and nature that has become so cha-racteristic 

of the Fondation Beyeler. Split-Rocker was first installed in 2000, in the cloister of the Palais des 

Papes in Avignon, then again a few years later in the gardens of Versailles (2008). Now Split- 

Rocker has begun to flourish in Riehen. 

For his floral sculpture, Koons proceeded from two different rocker motifs, a pony and a dinosaur, 

whose heads he cut in half and then reassembled. Since the halves do not coincide, gaps are 

formed at certain places which open the sculpture out and transform it into an architecture that 

offers refuges. A disassembled and differently reassembled figure that simultaneously looks 

forward and to the side, Split-Rocker relates to the Cubism of Picasso while at the same time 

turning it in an entirely new direction. As a floral outdoor sculpture, the piece also continues the 

tradition of Baroque garden art and the topiary gardening still seen today in popular amusement 

parks. 

With the combination of pony and dinosaur, Split-Rocker embodies that confrontation of opposites 

that is also expressed in the notion of a "monstrous" , gigantic children's toy. Yet the artist chooses 

transitory flowers, of all things, as the material for a monument that promises duration. It is not 

least in this special interplay of supposed opposites that the true tension and force of Koons's art 

lie. 

The floral sculpture Split Rocker, was planted by trainees from the training firms of the Garden Masters 

Association of the two Basels, accompanied by expert gardeners. We wish to thank Thomas Schulte, 

President of the Garden Masters Association, and the trainees and gardeners, as well as Fritz Braun, 

Head of the Riehen Community Department of Gardens, for their generous support. 

The Split-Rocker project was made possible by the generous support of JTI. 

In the context of its cultural engagement, JTI engages in various projects worldwide, including contemporary 

art. In addition, JTI and the JTI Foundation support programs in the areas of the environment, disaster 

management, and social welfare. JTI is a leading international tobacco manufacturer, operating in 120 

countries, with headquarters in Geneva. 1200 people are working in Switzerland. 




Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 21, presse@fondationbeyeler.ch, www.fondationbeyeler.ch

01 Jeff Koons 

New Hoover Convertible, 1980 

Vacuum cleaner, acrylic, and fluorescent 

lights, 142.2 x 57.2 x 57.2 cm 

Rubell Family Collection, Miami 

© Jeff Koons 

Photo: Jeff Koons Studio / 

douglas M. Parker Studio, Los angeles 


Stacked, 1988 

Polychromed wood, 154.9 x 134.6 x 78.7 cm 

Private collection 



Jim Strong, new York 


Cake, 1995–97 

oil on canvas, 318.5 x 295.6 cm 

European private collection 



Jim Strong, new York 


Balloon Flower (Blue), 1995–2000 

High chromium stainless steel with 

transparent color coating, 

340 x 285 x 260 cm 



Visualization of an installation 

in Berower Park, Fondation Beyeler, 

Riehen / Basel 


New Shelton Wet / Drys Tripledecker, 1981 

three vacuum cleaners, acrylic, and fluorescent 

lights, 316.2 x 71.1 x 71.1 cm 

des Moines art Center Permanent 

Collections, purchased with funds from 

Roy Halston Frowick by exchange, 1991 


Photo: Jeff Koons Studio, new York 


Ushering in Banality, 1988 




Photo: © taSCHEn GmbH / 

Schaub/Höffner, Cologne 


Tulips, 1995–98 




Photo: Jeff Koons Studio / tom Powel 

Fondation Beyeler 


Bear and Policeman, 1988 

Polychromed wood, 215.9 x 109.2 x 94 cm 

Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg 




Winter Bears, 1988 


the Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann 

Collection 




Tulips, 1995–2004 



203.2 x 457.2 x 520.7 cm 

Prada Collection, Milan 


Photo: Serge Hasenböhler 


Split-Rocker, 2000 

in Berower Park, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2012, with the support of Jti 

as well as Simone and Peter Forcart-Staehelin, inCentive asset Management aG 

Stainless steel, soil, geotextile fabric, internal irrigation system, 

and live flowering plants, 1120.1 x 1181.1 x 1082 cm 

Collection of the artist 


digital processing based on photographs taken by Laurent Lecat and andri Pol 


Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988 

Porcelain, 106.7 x 179.1 x 82.6 cm 

the Broad art Foundation, Santa Monica 



douglas M. Parker Studio, Los angeles 


Balloon Dog (Red), 1994–2000 



307.3 x 363.2 x 114.3 cm 





Play-Doh, 1995–2007 





18 

Jeff Koons, 2012 

Photo: Chris Fanning / © Jeff Koons 

New exklusive portaits online 

May 13 to September 2, 2012 


Pink Panther, 1988 

Porcelain, 104.1 x 52.1 x 48.3 cm 

Courtesy the Brant Foundation, Greenwich, 

Connecticut 


Photo: © taSCHEn GmbH / 

Schaub/Höffner, Cologne 


Hanging Heart (Gold/Magenta), 1994–2006 



291 x 280 x 101.5 cm 





Balloon Swan (Magenta), 2004–11 



350.5 x 302.3 x 238.8 cm 




Press images http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch 

this visual material may be used for press purposes only. Reproduction is permitted for the duration of the exhibition only. Please employ the 

captions as given and the relevant copyrights. any images online must be low-resolution and non-reproduction quality. We kindly request you to 

forward us a voucher copy.

Biography 


1955 

Jeff Koons is born in York, Pennsylvania, where he spends his childhood. 

1972-76 

Studies art and design at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. In 1975 he spends an 

exchange year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The following year he leaves Chicago 

for New York. 

1977 

Koons works at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquiring new museum members. Until 

1979 he develops his first series of works, consisting of combined ready-mades in which inflatable 

figures are placed on and in front of mirrors. 

1979 

Begins to work with household appliances, which he affixes to fluorescent lamps for a series later 

titled Pre-New. Executes first work with a vacuum cleaner. Koons is employed as a broker on Wall 

Street in order to finance the production of his art. 

1980 

Koons installs his first show in the display window of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New 

York, out of which he will develop the series The New. 

1983 

Sketches the first water tanks for the Equilibrium series. 

1985 

Koons has his first true one-person show, at the gallery International With Monument, New York. 

1986 

The series Luxury and Degradation and Statuary emerge, all of the sculptures of which consist of 

stainless chrome steel. 

1987 

Koons is invited to "Skulptur Projekte Münster" in Germany, and creates Kiepenkerl in stainless 

chrome steel. 

1988 

Koons's new series, Banality, is simultaneously shown in three distinguished galleries in Cologne, 

New York and Chicago. The porcelain and wood figures mystify the critics. 

1991 

The Made in Heaven series is shown in Cologne and New York. The works, showing the artist 

making love with Ilona Staller, alias Cicciolina, are largely panned by the critics. Koons and Staller 

marry. 

1992 

Koons creates the monumental floral sculpture Puppy in front of the castle in Bad Arolson near 

Kassel. Large museum retrospectives are held in Amsterdam, Stuttgart, San Francisco, and 

Minneapolis.

1993 

Inspired by his little son, Ludwig Maximilian, Koons develops the extensive series Celebration, 

comprising colored chrome steel and polyethelene sculptures and paintings. Koons separates from 

Ilona Staller, and a protracted struggle for custody of their son begins. 

1999 

Koons begins a new series, Easyfun, comprising paintings and wall-mounted sculptures. 

2000 

Designs Split-Rocker, his second floral sculpture, which is first shown at the Palais des Papes in 

Avignon. He begins a new series of paintings, Easyfun-Ethereal. 

2002 

A new series of sculptures and paintings, Popeye, is commenced. Koons weds Justine Wheeler. 

2004 

Koons is honored with retrospectives in New York, Oslo and Helsinki. 

2006 

Begins working on a new series, Hulk Elvis. 

2008 

Large-scale exhibitions in Chicago, New York, Berlin, and in the Palace of Versailles, are devoted 

to Koons. He starts working on the new series Antiquity. 

2012 

The Fondation Beyeler stages the first exhibition of Koons’ work ever held in a Swiss museum, 

soon to be followed by a Koons exhibition in Frankfurt am Main.

Statements by Jeff Koons 

Jeff Koons, ed. by Fondation Beyeler and Theodora Vischer, Exhibition catalog Fondation Beyeler, 

Riehen/Basel, May 13 – September 2, 2012, Hatje Cantz Publishers, Ostfildern 2012 

In The New I transformed vacuum cleaners by placing them in lit plexiglass cases in order to 

display them as a state-of-being new. The idea behind this is that objects can achieve such 

ultimate states-of-being, while we humans cannot: we have to deteriorate. This confrontation 

shows the threatening aspect of the object, the power it has over us, because in many ways 

it is stronger and better prepared to survive. (1986–87) p.42 

To me, integrity means unaltered. When I’m working with an object I always have to give the 

greatest consideration not to alter the object physically or even psychologically. I try to reveal 

a certain aspect of the object’s personality. (1986) p.50 

In the beginning the work was viewed in relation to consumerism. The socio-political dialogue 

that people have with objects was treated in a very light manner, almost always without 

reference to its tragic side. And my work is very involved with the tragedy of unachievable 

states of being. The only way the work could be judged critically would be in light of the 

increasing reality of the desire to attain these unachievable states. My work has always 

pursued perfection, which is unachievable; nevertheless, it has continued in its tragic quest. 

(1987) p.56 

I’ve made what the Beatles would have made if they had made sculpture. Nobody ever said 

that the Beatles’ music was not on a high level, but it appealed to a mass audience. That’s 

what I want to do. (1992) p. 84 

I’m for the return of the objective, and for the artist to regain the responsibility for manipulation 

and seduction: for art to have as much political impact as the entertainment industry, 

the film, the pop music and the advertising industries. (1992) p. 118 

Earlier in the ’80s, I always looked at my responsibility to objects, and then I realized in the 

mid-’80s that my real interest was in the viewer, in the individual. (2005) p. 98 

In Banality I was looking at mass imagery and at my environment. For Ushering in Banality I 

saw a postcard of a kid pushing a pig. I saw it as autobiographical, since I come from 

Pennsylvania. It did not matter to me if people enjoyed the work or accepted it, but I really felt 

that God was on my side. Th is sense of belief structure is taking place within the Banality 

exhibition. (2003) p. 89 

In the Banality work, I started to be really specific about what my interests were. Everything 

here is a metaphor for the viewer’s cultural guilt and shame. Art can be a horrible discriminator. 

It can be used either to be uplifting and to give self-empowerment, or to debase people 

and disempower them. And on the tightrope in between, there is one’s cultural history. These 

images are aspects from my own, but everybody’s cultural history is perfect, it can’t be anything 

other than what it is—it is absolute perfection. Banality was the embracement of that. 

(2002–09) p. 110 

I thought about the Banality exhibition over a period of time; I was looking at mass iconography 

and at different materials, to see how these materials had become democratised. For

example, porcelain was always a very regal material just for kings and aristocracy. … And 

today … porcelain is completely democratised: anyone can buy a little figurine. (2003) p.100 

I use the Baroque to show the public that we are in the realm of the spiritual, the eternal. The 

church uses the Baroque to manipulate and seduce, but in return it does give the public a 

spiritual experience. (1992) p.112 

As an artist, I strive to create archetypal images, and sometimes these archetypal images 

have an iconic aspect to them. It seems to me that something that is iconic has to be 

chameleon-like, very flexible for its interpretation by the viewer. It could mean one thing to 

one generation, and something completely different to another, but as long as they are able 

to find meaning, it can survive. Pieces like Balloon Dog [1994–2000] are really dealing with 

this area. You look at it and you could think of a child’s birthday party and it looks like a 

ready-made. Of course its scale is much bigger than any real balloon. You could also think 

about it as a Trojan horse. Even though it is a Balloon Dog it has a strong equestrian 

presence. … There is another aspect to the work that involves the reflective surface, and 

that’s connected to our thoughts and ambitions and desires … (2003) p.131 

When I make an artwork, I try to use craft as a way, hopefully, to give the viewer a sense of 

trust. I never want anybody to look at a painting, or to look at a sculpture, and to lose trust in 

it somewhere. … I would never want anybody to walk around and look at the back and feel 

that something was missing, that less support was there. (2000) p. 134 

My works are very “Pop”. Each time I look at Pop Art it’s like a little explosion, very upbeat. I 

hope that my works, too, have that kind of rejuvenation, that each time you look at it you feel 

a sense of pop. (1996) p.144 

I don’t think about Celebration as being specifically about childhood. I think that they are 

ageless images …. They relate to aspects of childhood. A child looking at it could be engaged 

by it. But they are just things that are, hopefully, important to people in general. They are 

dealing with aspects which people can think back to about their own childhood, and to 

memory. They are though, very sophisticated artworks. (1996) p. 158 

I prefer beneficial things in life. If I were a plant, I would want to receive sunlight and I would 

want to receive water and nutrition from the earth, I wouldn’t want to not receive sunlight, not 

enough water or be placed with a bad environment. The reason why I like archetypes so 

much, is that for some reason they communicate completely across cultures. I like archetypes, 

because they help people survive. So they are beneficial. (1996) p.152

Events Accompanying the 

"Jeff Koons" Exhibition 

Jeff Koons Lecture 

Sunday, 13 May 2012, 11.30 am - 1.30 pm 

The American artist Jeff Koons talks about his art in the context of the exhibition. 

Lecture in the English language. 

Event ticket includes museum admission. Tickets available online or at the museum desk. 

Sold out. 

Jeff Koons Children's Workshop 

Sunday, 13 May 2012, 4.00 - 5.00 pm 

Workshop for children aged 6 to 10, conceived by the artist. 

Price: CHF 10 incl. materials. 

Registration required, at tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 20, fuehrungen@fondationbeyeler.ch. 

Number of places limited. 

Jeff Koons Soirée 

Friday, 1 June, 6 July, 3 August 2012, 6.00 - 9.00 pm 

Reduced admission and free admission for visitors up to age 25. 

Detailed program at: http://www.fondationbeyeler.ch/informationen/agenda 

Artist's Talk with Jeff Koons 

Thursday, 14 June 2012, 5.00 . 6.00 pm 

In the context of Art I 43 I Basel, curator Theodora Vischer talks personally with Jeff Koons about his art and 

the current show. 

Conversation in the English language. 

Event ticket includes museum admission. Tickets available online or at the museum desk. Number of places 

limited. 

Jeff Koons Family Day 

Sunday, 24 June 2012, 10.00 am - 6.00 pm 

In addition to short guided tours and museum games, various workshops in the park invite you to 

experiment. Special program and admission are free of charge to visitors up to age 25. 

Detailed program at www.fondationbeyeler.ch/informationen/agenda 

Art as a Reservoir of Ideas 

Thursday, 23 August 2012, 7.30 - 9.00 pm 

Podium discussion with artists and public relations people with the Art Directors Club of Switzerland. Event 

ticket includes museum admission. 

Art Appreciation 

Public Tours and Events 

Daily schedule at http://www.fondationbeyeler.ch/informationen/agenda 

Private Tours for Groups 

Information and registration: tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 20, fuehrungen@fondationbeyeler.ch 

Offer for Schools 

Information and registration at www.fondationbeyeler.ch/Ausstellungen/Kunstvermittlung 

Online Ticketing for Admissions and Events at www.fondationbeyeler.ch 

or advanced sales at museum desk

Partners of Fondation Beyeler 

Public Funds 

Main Partners 

Partners 

Media Partners 

We thank Basler Versicherungen for their kind support. 

Fondation Beyeler

Jeff Koons - Fondation Beyeler

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