This summer, Jeff Koonsis geared up for a big season in New York. The prince of pop art will receive his first retrospective at the Whitney Museum before the organization moves to a new location on the High Line. In addition, Koons is bringing a flower-covered sculpture to Rockefeller Center.
Split Rocker, a form Koons has used on more than one occasion, features the heads of two different children's rocker toys fused together into an unnerving hybrid plaything. The sculpture, presented by Gagosian Gallery and organized by Public Art Fund and Tishman Speyer, will appear in New York's Rockefeller Center from June 25 to Sept. 12.
Rising 37-feet tall, Split Rocker is covered in 50,000 flowering plants. In the past, it has appeared at Palais des Papes, Avignon, Fondation Beyeler, and Château de Versailles.
"I love the dialogue with nature in creating a piece that needs so much control—How many plants should be planted? How will these plants survive?—while at the same time giving up the control. It's in nature's hands, even though you try to plan everything to make the plants survive. This sense of giving up control is very beautiful. The balance between control and giving up control reminds us of the polarity of existence," Koons said of his work.
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