Milan, a large work by Jeff Koons at Gallerie d'Italia in Piazza Scala

A major work by Jeff Koons, namely Gazing Ball. Centaur and Lapith Maiden, from 2013, will remain on display from Sept. 14 to Nov. 7, 2021 at the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan’s Piazza Scala. The American artist’s work is intended to create an ideal link between Milan and Florence in anticipation of the exhibition Jeff Koons. Shine, which will be held from October 2, 2021 at Palazzo Strozzi, with Intesa Sanpaolo as Main Partner. The work on display in Milan is part of the celebrated Gazing Ball series, in which the artist places shiny, mirrored blue glass spheres on faithful reproductions of famous works, both painting and sculpture, by authors as diverse as Leonardo da Vinci to Édouard Manet, Giotto to Vincent van Gogh, Praxitel to Cristophe-Gabriel Allegrain.

Gazing Ball. Centaur and Lapith Maiden is part of the series devoted to classical statuary, in which Koons replicates famous sculptural groups, placed on monumental pedestals, molded in a white plaster specially designed by Koons’s studio, on which blue blown glass balls rest. Decorations typical of American provincial gardens, however, which Koons has handcrafted by skilled craftsmen. The mirrored sphere is placed on the plaster cast of a grandiose marble sculpture (more than eight feet high and nearly eight feet long), part of the western pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia in Greece, depicting the struggle between a centaur and a Lapith woman. For the cast Koons used a 19th-century one already part of a collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The episode depicted is taken from the Greek myth of the battle between Centaurs and Lapiths, one of the most popular subjects in classical and Renaissance art history, a symbol of the struggle between order and chaos, civilization and barbarism.

Combining references to art history, the concept of the readymade and an obsession with material and appearance, Koons creates a work that becomes a hybrid of different temporal dimensions, as well as a reflection on the relationship between the public and the artwork.

“The exhibition of Jeff Koons’ work at the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan, realized in collaboration with Palazzo Strozzi,” says Michele Coppola, Executive Director Arte Cultura e Beni Storici of Intesa Sanpaolo, “anticipates and accompanies the exhibition that the Florentine museum will host from the beginning of October on the American artist and for which Intesa Sanpaolo is Main Partner. By participating with its museums in the restart of cultural life and consolidating its relationship with the main national cultural institutions, the Bank confirms its attention to the evolutions of the contemporary art world, lively and on the move by definition.”

“The renewed collaboration between Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and Intesa Sanpaolo through this special occasion for Gallerie d’Italia stems from a strategic alliance for culture as an engine for the restart of our country,” says Arturo Galansino, general director of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. “We are proud to be able to work together with Gallerie d’Italia in the celebration of an international artist of the caliber of Jeff Koons, who through his works for over forty years has been challenging perception and reflection on the concept and role of art in the contemporary world.”

The exhibition Jeff Koons. Shine will run until January 30, 2022 and is promoted and organized by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. Supporters: City of Florence, Tuscany Region, Florence Chamber of Commerce, Fondazione CR Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi Partners Committee. Main Partner: Intesa Sanpaolo. Presenting the entrance ticket of one of the three Gallerie d’Italia venues at the Palazzo Strozzi ticket office, and vice versa, will be charged at a reduced rate.

Pictured: Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball. Centaur and Lapith Maiden (2013).

Milan, a large work by Jeff Koons at Gallerie d'Italia in Piazza Scala

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