On June 25, Jeff Koons’s massive, flowering sculpture “Split-Rocker” will go on view at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. Weighing in at 150 tons and standing 37 feet tall, the sculpture features two halves -- one based on a toy pony belonging to one of Koons’s sons, and the other based on a toy dinosaur. The two pieces come together to form the head of a giant child’s rocker. The work will be covered in over 50,000 living plants, including petunias, begonias, impatiens, geraniums, and marigolds.
Backed by Gagosian Gallery, which represents Koons, and organized by the Public Art Fund and real estate company Tishman Speyer, the installation will coincide with the opening of a Koons retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art on June 27. Best known for his reproductions of banal objects, Koons has never been the subject of a retrospective surveying the full scope of his career. The exhibition at the Whitney will present more than 120 objects dating from 1978 to the present, making it the most comprehensive ever devoted to the artist’s groundbreaking oeuvre.
