Commercial mass-produced goods, banal knick-knack and traditional sculptural elements form a truly unique combination in Jeff Koons' artistic oeuvre. Kitsch and commerce have been defining the artist's work since the 1980s, polarizing with his sometimes larger-than-life porcelain figurines and elevating brand-new vacuum cleaners to ready-mades worthy of being exhibited. Among his best-known works are the "Balloon Animals", with which the artist immortalizes the brightly colored, trendy aesthetics of balloons modeled into animal figures. A supposedly short-lived, everyday disposable product is elevated to an eternally beautiful work of art with the help of the flawless, highly polished surface. "The most important thing to me is the preservation of the object – the sense that it has been created to survive and that its longevity is certain", explains Koons (cited from: www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ jeff-koons-2368/jeff-koons-banality-decadence-and-easyfun).
The series of works of seemingly light and airy balloon animals, and in particular the "Balloon Dogs" in the most diverse color variations and sizes, is one of the artist's best-known works. The monumental versions of the "Balloon Dog" were exhibited at the Palace of Versailles and on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 2008, as well as in the grand solo show at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel in 2012.
Since the artist's first solo exhibition in 1980, the unmistakable works have been presented at the world’s most important international museums. In 2014, the Center Pompidou in Paris, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, devoted large-scale retrospective exhibitions to them. Until January 30, 2022, some of his works were shown in the exhibition "Shine" at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence - where visitors could, of course, also admire a monumental "Balloon Dog".