Hanging Heart

The hanging heart, like many of koons’ art is made from stainless steel and is gigantic in size. “Hanging heart weighs over 3,500 pounds, is almost nine feet tall and took over 6,000 man hours to produce (artknowledgenews.com).” This work is very unique, surreal, and attractive in the way that it is done that it could be nearly impossible to comprehend its magnitude. This work was made five different times and in different colors each time. The works took ten years to complete and each one had about ten layers of paint that covered the surface. One can only marvel at how precise and perfect each piece must have been made that, in turn, contributed to the overall finesse of the final product. Alex Rotter, senior Vice President and senior Specialist of Contemporary Art noted that hanging heart is both “powerful and romantic” and that it was “highly desirable and the perfect match for this icon-driven market (artknowledgenews.com).” Hanging heart also seems to float in the air because it hangs above the floor.

In this work of art I believe that Koons is responding to a sense of celebration and attaching this work to viewers’ emotional side. Hanging heart was also done as a moving away from minimalism and conceptualism to a more neo/post-pop. When asked about this work, koons states: “I wanted to make a work that would show my son when he was older and could understand that I loved him and was thinking about him (jca-online.com).” Another reason for this work from koons was to create a sense of comfort and a feeling of participation with the art.

This type of art by Koons reminds me of Claes Oldenberg’s works of floor cake, soft light switch, etc. in that hanging heart was a huge work of art and contained a common everyday object. However, I am also reminded of Andy Warhol’s use of commonplace objects as well. Another parallel that could be drawn in the sense of size and splendor would be the works of Christo and Jean Claude who covered mass amounts of land with tarps and other materials to make large shapes and new forms of the environment around them.

http://www.jca-online.com/koons.html

http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Jeff_Koons_Hanging_Heart.html