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Gazing Ball (Farnese Hercules)Jeff Koons
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Park Seo Jun
Artwork Details
- name of artworkGazing Ball (Farnese Hercules)
- TypeSculpture and Installation Art
- LocationArt Space
- ArtistJeff Koons
- Size326x170x123.5
About the Artwork
In this work, one of Jeff Koon’s series, Gazing Ball, a blue ball is set on the upper part of Farnese Hercules produced in the Roman Era. Initially made in 2014, this series presently expands its territory to classical painting. Koons sheds light on the relations between noted artworks reflected onto a blue ball and viewers by setting “a gazing ball” before stone statues or classical masterpieces art, which thereby stimulating interest and attracting participation.
About the Artist
Dubbed the “king of postmodern kitsch,” Jeff Koons is a leading American contemporary artist as well as an artist whose works are one of the most expensive ones among others of our time. He enlarges objects found in American popular culture or everyday life to a colossal scale in collaboration with his assistants at his factory-like studio, drawing attention by shattering our fixed notions on size and weight. Even though devalued as a kitsch artist anchored in “self-merchandising” by some critics, he is credited as an artist who has still had tremendous influence and secured commercial success.
AUDIO GUIDE SCRIPT
American artist Jeff Koons made the piece titled "Gazing Ball-Farnese Hercules," which depicts a person carrying a sparkling blue ball on his shoulder. It is a piece from his "Gazing Ball" series, in which he replicates commonplace items like snowmen and mailboxes or ancient Greek sculptures in white plaster and finishes them off by adding a blue ball to the top. This piece mimics a sculpture of Hercules from Greek mythology. In particular, it shows the artist’s wit in producing "Hercules," the myth's mightiest hero, out of the delicate material, plaster. If you look closely at the blue ball, you can see how it reflects the people watching and their surroundings. Why don't you snap a cute selfie in a fun pose?