Jeff Koons

When I was about five years old, I would go after school to this little building, like a little shelter. In the afternoons we’d make things out of Popsicle sticks. We’d work with Play-Doh. And this experience gave me my foundation. That’s what I hold on to in the world. And whatever I made at that time, I know is equivalent to what I’m doing now. And that was, for me, really art.
—Jeff Koons

Gagosian is pleased to present the exhibition of Cracked Egg (Blue) (1994–2006) by Jeff Koons, a large two-part stainless-steel sculpture from the mythic Celebration series that he began with Balloon Dog in 1994. Cracked Egg (Blue) is a unique work and the first of five versions (including the artist’s proof), each rendered in a different vivid color.

The Celebration series comprises twenty different sculptures and sixteen paintings inspired by Koons’s enduring preoccupation with childhood experiences and childlike consciousness. These paintings and sculptures isolate moments and objects associated with life’s celebratory events such as birthdays and holidays. With its impressive scale, pure lines, and flawless, highly reflective surface, Cracked Egg (Blue) resonates with iconic significance.

From the outset of his controversial career, Koons turned the traditional notion of the work of art and its context inside out. Focusing on some of the most unexpected objects as models for his work, from vacuum cleaners and inflatable flowers to novelty drink caddies, Koons eschewed typical standards of “good taste” in art, instead embracing conventional, distinctly American middle-class values to expose the vulnerabilities of hierarchies and value systems. Addressing various conceptual constructs including the new, the banal, and the heavenly, Koons has evolved his work from its literal, deadpan beginnings to baroque manifestations that oscillate between abstraction, sculpture, and pure spectacle.