Hanging Heart (Red/Gold)
High-chromium stainless steel with transparent colored coating
291 x 280 x 101.5 cm (114 9/16 x 110 1/4 x 39 15/16 in.)
A huge red heart hovers in the air, hanging by a gigantic golden ribbon. Devoid of any asperity, eternally new, this sculpture all at once oversized, kitsch and technically perfect oozes innocence and seduction.
Hanging Heart (Red/Gold) is part of the Celebration series that celebrates pleasure and childhood. According to Jeff Koons, “childhood is that territory where one accepts and appreciates things as they are.” This approach based on playfulness and joy shapes the relationship between the artwork and the viewer and between the artworks themselves. It signals a hedonistic approach to art history: “Art history became interesting for me when I realized it had to do with joy, and not a rank or another in the hierarchy of information,” said the artist.
A major artwork of the Pinault Collection, Hanging Heart (Red/Gold) was first shown in 2006 at the "Where Are We Going?" exhibition at Palazzo Grassi, in Venice.
Quotations excerpted from the conversation between Jeff Koons and Elena Geuna, in In Praise of Doubt, cat. exp., Venice, Punta della Dogana, 2011.
