Jeff Koons
Apollo (solo show)
DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra
21 June – 31 October 2022
The DESTE Foundation is pleased to present Jeff Koons: Apollo, a solo exhibition on view at DESTE’s Project Space at the old Slaughterhouse in Hydra from 21 June to 31 October 2022. The exhibition is an installation presenting new sculptures by Jeff Koons along with readymade objects selected by the artist to engage the viewer in a metaphysical dialogue between the contemporary and ancient. The show marks over twenty years since Jeff Koons’s last solo exhibition in Greece.
At the center of the installation, within the Slaughterhouse, is the sculpture Apollo Kithara (2019–2022). The Apollo is playing a kithara, which is considered the origin of today’s guitar. The polychromed animatronic sculpture stands over 2.3 meters tall. The walls within the Slaughterhouse have been transformed by using as the base the ancient frescoes from Boscoreale, near Pompeii. The exhibition includes several other new works including a pair of bronze Nike sneakers, Gazing Ball Tripod (2020–2022), and Plato’s Solid Forms Wind Spinners (2020–2022). There are other elements that are corresponding to this installation, ranging from burning candles to a Duchampian reference of a urinal. Above the Slaughterhouse is Apollo Wind Spinner (2020–2022), a 9.1 meter (30-foot) wide reflective wind spinner that greets people entering the port of Hydra on one side and, on the other, welcomes people walking to the building housing the installation. The face of the wind spinner is that of Apollo.
The exhibition activates the senses through music, sage burning, and baked offerings reminiscent of ancient times. With the sounds of the ancient kithara playing alongside contemporary songs, the two musical formats are at times disjointed and at other moments find sublime beauty. The overall exhibition is metaphysical and celebrates human history and aspiration.
DESTE Foundation
Jeff Koons
Dugong, 2022 (installation)
Commissioned by Qatar Museums, Qatar
A new public installation by Jeff Koons has been unveiled at Al Masrah Park in Doha’s Corniche. Made of polychromed mirror-polished stainless-steel, and stretching over 32-meters longand 24-meters heigh, the monumental sculpture depicts a dugong propped up on an ocean wave. The marine mammal has inhabited the waters surrounding Qatar’s peninsula for thousands of years.
Dugong, 2022, is the latest addition to a series of major art projects commissioned by Qatar Museums in the lead up to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, including Ernesto Neto’s Slug Turtle, TemplEarth, 2022.
Günther Förg, Jeff Koons, Inge Mahn
Balance (group show)
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin
10 June – 9 October 2022
Works by Günther Förg, Jeff Koons and Inge Mahn are included in the group exhibition Balance, which will be on view at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin from 10 June until 9 October 2022.
Incorporating a range of styles and movements include Minimal Art, Transavanguardia, Pop Art and contemporary art, the exhibition presents works dealing with individual and societal struggles to attain balance, harmony and stability. At the same time, these works shwo how transient balance is, once it has been attained. The exhibition Balance divides the depiction of these dwindling certainties into five thematic sections: the futility of longing for balance, the perception of balance, the tension inherent in interpersonal balancing acts, the imbalance in the relationship between humans and nature, and lastly, the balancing of individual and societal expectations in economic contexts.
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart