TF1 partners the “Jeff Koons: A Retrospective” exhibition from November 26, 2014 to April

The Centre Pompidou is organising the first comprehensive Jeff Koons retrospective in Europe, and TF1 is the exclusive media partner of the event.

The unprecedented exhibition will allow visitors to fully appreciate a body of work that has marked the contemporary artistic and cultural landscape for 35 years.

While a considerable number of Jeff Koons exhibitions have been organised, focusing on specific ensembles of the artist’s work or on single sculptures in historical environments, this is the first to bring his work together in a comprehensive and chronological manner covering his entire output. The retrospective contains around 100 sculptures and paintings, and retraces all the landmarks in the artist’s career.

Devised in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, which presented it in New York from June 27 to October 19, the exhibition invites visitors to take an unprejudiced look at the work of one of the most famous and controversial artists of our times, described as “the last of the Pop artists” by Bernard Blistène, director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne and curator of the Paris exhibition.

The works exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, heralding from around the world, have become present-day icons. The aquariums in the “Equilibrium” series (1985), “Rabbit” (1986), “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” (1988) and “Balloon Dog” (1994–2000) have gained immense popularity and made their mark on contemporary visual culture.

The retrospective takes a historical and chronological approach, highlighting the different cycles in the artist’s work from early pieces reflecting the art of their times to current works that implicitly dialogue with the history of classical art. The exhibition highlights the consistency and main themes of the artist’s work, as well as the diversity and depth of his creative power.

The work of Jeff Koons has established itself with each new series. Fragile to the point of being derisory, the first “Inflatables” gave way to assemblages seeking a synthesis between Pop Art and Minimalism, as seen in the “The New” series.

In the following series, Koons focused on the iconography of a mass culture expressing the American dream and its fantasies. The “Luxury and Degradation” series (1986) duplicated the advertising strategies deployed by major brands, while “Banality” (1988) drew on popular imagery, mingling childhood dreams and erotic suggestion with “classic hits” in the history of art. Koons went on to produce artefacts glorifying the taste of the American middle classes, tirelessly presenting himself as their spokesman.

The subversive, outrageous “Made in Heaven” series (1989–1991) blurred the boundaries between Koons and his character through decidedly pornographic stagings, providing the artist and his muse with material for multiple representations. Koons then became the “corrupting enchanter” of a society where dreams and illusions mingled confusedly with collective ideals and violence.

Having explored monumentality with “Puppy” (1992) and “Split-Rocker” (2000), Koons moved into the public space. With the “Celebration” series (1994), and notably the celebrated “Balloon Dog”, he achieved a technical peak and took the transfiguration of trivial objects into accomplished, gleaming, hyper-inflated sculptural forms to its apogee.

In fact, the idea of the inflatable is found throughout the artist’s work, as seen in the “Popeye” (2003) and “Hulk Elvis” (2007) series produced in stainless steel and the iconic “Rabbit” that brought the artist so much prominence.

From “Easyfun” (1999–2003) to “Antiquity” (2009–2014), Jeff Koons has concentrated mainly on the evolving image of painting. Using collage, he assembles heterogeneous elements on the same surface, fragmenting and stratifying them. American stereotypes feature more than ever, with wide-open spaces, an excess of industrial food, superheroes and other comic strip characters. Koons mingles these stereotypes with more personal references, ranging from childish graffiti to famous works from Antiquity, as with his latest “Gazing Ball” works (2013), which juxtapose garden ornaments with plaster moulds of classical masterpieces