At the Court of the Sun King, Some All-American Art
Ed Alcock for The New York Times
“Balloon Dog” by Jeff Koons at the Château de Versailles exhibition. More Photos>
At the Court of the Sun King, Some All-American Art
VERSAILLES, France — An aluminum red lobster hangs from the ceiling alongside a crystal chandelier in the Mars Salon. A plexiglass-encased display of vacuum cleaners and floor polishers sits in front of the official portrait of Marie Antoinette. And an open-mouthed, bare-breasted blonde holding a pink panther seems to be laughing at a 1729 painting of Louis XV conferring peace upon Europe.
America has invaded the gilded chambers and sculptured gardens of the Château de Versailles in the form of a much-debated exhibition by the American superstar artist Jeff Koons.
Versailles in recent years has displayed only a few select works of contemporary artists, and even then they were shown ever so briefly. The exhibition of 17 Koons sculptures marks the first time that the chateau built by Louis XIV has organized so ambitious a retrospective of one contemporary artist. “Jeff Koons Versailles,” which opened on Wednesday, will continue until Dec. 14.
Mr. Koons expressed delight that the first retrospective ever of his work in France is at Versailles. After all, nearly 5 million people visit the chateau, and 8 to 10 million stroll the gardens every year, according to official Versailles figures.
“I’m thrilled with the totality of the whole experience,” he said Wednesday as he posed for photographers in the palace gardens in front of “Split-Rocker,” his 11-ton stainless-steel sculpture covered in 90,000 live flowers and plants. “It’s so profound — the high point of my artistic life.”
Not everyone here was as pleased by the installation. Several dozen people demonstrated outside the palace gates early Wednesday, a protest organized by the National Union of Writers of France, a little-known, right-wing group dedicated to artistic purity in France.
The exhibition “strikes at the heart of a civilization” and “is an outrage to Marie Antoinette,” said Arnaud-Aaron Upinsky, the group’s chairman.