Koons Gazing Ball Paintings

Gagosian is pleased to present a new series of paintings by jeff koons entitled gazing ball.

Koons gazing ball paintings. Each work includes a blue glass gazing ball that sits on a painted aluminum shelf attached to the front of the painting. Looking at the gazing ball paintings all credited to koons and called for instance gazing ball el greco vision of saint john the viewer sees him or herself reflected in the perfectly shiny. 69 3 4 x 53 3 4 x 14 3 4 inches. In this series koons is in dialogue with artists of the past such as titian el greco courbet and manet among others addressing the power of artistic gesture.

The provocative pop artist jeff koons began his gazing balls series in 2013 affixing mirrored blue hand blown glass balls to replicas of classical sculptures. In 2015 koons expanded the motif to paintings and prints adding blue spheres to recreations of his favorite two dimensional masterpieces which include édouard manet s luncheon on the grass 1862 1863 and leonardo da vinci s mona lisa 1503 1506. Dealing with the power of artistic gesture each work presented here in stunning color features a blue glass gazing ball that sits on a. Gagosian gallery new york new york november 9 december 23 2015 solo.

Begun in around 2013 jeff koons s gazing ball series couples fake old master paintings delicately and expensively reproduced by his studio of assistants right down to their surface texture with metallically blue glass balls of the same quality of koons s other sculptures. Gazing ball altdorfer the battle of alexander at issus oil on canvas glass and aluminum. Published as an accompaniment to the 2015 exhibition at gagosian gallery in new york this new book depicts jeff koons new gazing ball paintings and the resulting dialogue he creates with artists of the past from titian to el greco courbet to manet.