Pink Panther

1. Pink Panther 1988 Jeff Koons

2. Content • Pink Panther is a 41-inch tall porcelain sculpture featuring 1950s sex symbol Jayne Mansfield holding the cartoon character Pink Panther. • Koons himself said that, “Pink Panther is about masturbation. I don’t know what she would be doing with the Pink Panther other than taking it home to masturbate with.” This piece was first exhibited at a show among many other works by Koons that center around desire and sex.

3. Patron • This work in particular doesn’t have a patron because Koons originally made this artwork to take advantage of the absurdity of the art market. • The purpose of creating Pink Panther was to make money but eventually, the artwork become popular in the higher art society.

4. Site/Material/Scale • Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan, NYC (MOMA) • Porcelain • 41-inches tall

5. Purpose • The purpose of the work itself has been controversial over the years • Koons is able to merge two problem areas of America's culture into one: lust/desire/want and commercialism/materialism • “ Pink Panther is immediately identifiable as a masterpiece not only of the artist's historic canon, but also of the epoch of recent Contemporary Art. It conflates the classic themes that define the artist's output—materiality and artificiality, eroticism and naivety, popular culture and rarefied elitism—and is the model expression of one of the most innovative and influential artists of our times." — Sotheby's catalogue entry about Pink Panther

6. Style • Her head is tilted back, her hair is big and bright and she has a worry-free look on her face • The artwork is highly idealistic from the topless dame to the pink fur of the panther • In some ways the elements of Jayne are realistic but it is juxtaposed by the abstractness of the Pink Panther • She wears gaudy, gold jewelry and has a pink bow in her hair

7. Formal Elements • The sculpture was made to show Jayne in the spotlight while the Panther’s face is solemn to show that he has no self restraint • Asymmetrical • Jayne appears with a green bottom that appear to be a dress with no top and has a pink bow that matches with the colors of the Panther

8. Formal Elements • The sculpture was made to show Jayne in the spotlight while the Panther’s face is solemn to show that he has no self restraint • Asymmetrical • Jayne appears with a green bottom that appear to be a dress with no top and has a pink bow that matches with the colors of the Panther

9. Jeff Koons • born January 21, 1955 • He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York, Pennsylvania. • American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals • Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as crass and based on self-merchandising. • Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works

10. Links • “Pink Panther depicts a 1950s pin–up, modeled on the American B–movie actress Jayne Mansfield, with one hand covering a breast bared by a garment that has slipped down—a predicament for which Mansfield was notorious. The stuffed Pink Panther she clutches with her other hand is cheekily extending his tail toward the waistband of her skirt. Pink Panther is part of Koons’s Banality series, a group of twenty sculptures that draws on both popular culture and mass–market knickknacks. Koons enlarged, combined, and transformed his sources, and had his designs fabricated by European artisans in ceramic and polychromed wood. Sonnabend financed the production of the Banality series over a two–year period, seeing the sculptures for the first time when they were uncrated for exhibition at her New York gallery in 1988.” http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=81095

11. Links • http://keephistoryalive.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/art-history-wednesday-pink-panther/