The work of American artist Jeff Koons

Let’s go back out onto Eichhornstrasse street. We’ll meet up in front of the door.

We’ll retrace our steps up to number 5, that is, up to the corner of the street where we arrived from.

We have in front of us a large esplanade with a building and fountains in front of it. Inscribed in red is the name “Spielbank Berlin” (READER: pronounce Shpiel bank) and beside it is a sculpture in the form of enormous blue balloons. Let’s cross the street and position ourselves in front of the Spielbank Berlin.

We’re now in the center of Marlene Dietrich Platz, which honors Berlin’s most famous actress who fought against the Nazis. Let’s turn towards the Spielbank complex. We can see on the right the glass façade of Spielbank and, in its extension on the left, a similar building which displays on its glass façade the name: “Theater am Potsdamer Platz.” These 2 buildings are in fact just one. They’re linked by an immense metallic projecting roof, which creates a kind of canopy supported by two columns on the square. This is an entertainment complex which unites Germany’s largest casino with a huge theater reserved for musicals. The German productions of Hair, Cats and Les Misérables were staged here.

But since 2000, this theater has been, above all, used for the awards ceremony of the famous International Film Festival Berlin, the Berlinale, which hands out the famous Golden Bear. Let’s position ourselves in front of the sculpture in the form of inflatable blue-colored balloons, located on the right.

We’re going to say a few words about this work. But if you choose, you may proceed directly to the next chapter entitled “Moneo.”

A curious sculpture, don’t you think? What we’re looking at are several balloons linked together like a flower, and indeed the title of this work is, aptly, “Balloon Flower.” The piece is by American artist Jeff Koons and is in fact a sculpture in chrome steel covered in shellac. But who is this Jeff Koons? He belongs to a generation of artists that became famous in the 1980s and is inspired by pop art. That is to say that he transforms objects from daily life into works of art, often producing them in gigantic proportions which compel the spectator to look at them from a different approach, with a new perspective. One of his most famous sculptures is an enormous porcelain work that depicts Michael Jackson, a piece that has earned him a reputation among critics for being a purveyor of the kitsch. Before he became a famous artist, Koons worked as a stockbroker and used the money he earned in that profession to produce his artistic creations. His first international success was in 1980 with a work entitled “The New.” This took the form of a brand new vacuum cleaner installed in a glass display cabinet, like a show window, neon-lit and sterilized.

But Jeff Koons has never been far from scandal. In 1991 he married Cicciolina, an Italian porn star. Inspired by her passion for sex, he produced in collaboration with his wife a series of gigantic photographs that showed the two in various sexual acts—and no detail was spared. But Koons was also a realist, he wasn’t flirting with taboo merely to shock the onlooker but to reveal beauty through provocation. He mixes kitsch images and subject matter, modern objects and materials and sex to appeal to the taste of Yuppies and the nouveaux riches. In fact, his work goes beyond pop art and everyday objects. Through such works he speaks to the excessive consumerism of wealthy sectors of society and elaborates a philosophy on the subject.