Famous for his provocative yet pioneering works of art, American artist Jeff Koons is now exhibiting two attention-grabbing contemporary sculptures right in the heart of Florence.
The more than 3-metre-high Pluto and Proserpina, noted for its peculiar resemblance to Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women, is on display in piazza della Signoria, a few short steps from the David copy.
This is the first time since Baccio Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus 500 years ago that such a massive original sculpture has been placed so close to the façade of the Palazzo Vecchio.
Jeff Koons, Pluto and Proserpina, 2010-2013
Inside the Palazzo Vecchio, home to Florence’s municipal offices, Gazing Ball (Barberini Faun) is stopping visitors in their tracks. Positioned in the Sala dei Gigli, this provocative piece created in 2013 is part of a series of plaster casts of famous Greco-Roman sculptures to which Koons has added a symbolic blue sphere.
Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball (Barberini Faun), 2013
The exhibition is a rare chance to see Florence’s Renaissance masterworks by the likes of Donatello and Michelangelo juxtaposed with envelope-pushing contemporary pieces.
The works will be on show until December 28, 2015.
For more information, see www.musefirenze.it/en/jeff-koons-in-florence.
