Two immaculate, unused wet/dry vacuum cleaners are stacked one atop the other and hermetically sealed in plexiglass boxes lit from below with fluorescent lights. Separated from their domestic role as cleaning machines, the objects are elevated to sculpture. “I chose the vacuum cleaner because of its anthropomorphic qualities,” Koons has said. “It is a breathing machine. It also displays both male and female sexuality. It has orifices and phallic attachments.” The curving armature of the hose circles the canister in an embrace, and the machine’s bold maroon and gold stripes are colorful flourishes within an otherwise sterile environment.
New Shelton Wet/Dry Doubledecker belongs to Koons’s series The New, which he debuted in 1980. “I had this idea of encasing the pieces and letting them just display their integrity of birth, their newness, and treating them like eternal virgins,” he has said. Koons’s work blends the worlds of advertising, commerce, and high culture to alter the way we perceive quotidian objects. Like Andy Warhol with his Campbell’s Soup cans and Brillo boxes, Koons elevates mundane artifacts from everyday life, transferring them from the realm of popular culture into that of art.
Publication excerpt from MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art, New York (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2019)
Two immaculate, unused wet/dry vacuum cleaners are stacked one atop the other and hermetically sealed in Plexiglas boxes lit from below with fluorescent lights. Separated from their domestic role as cleaning machines, the objects are elevated to sculpture. “I chose the vacuum cleaner because of its anthropomorphic qualities,” Koons has said. “It is a breathing machine. It also displays both male and female sexuality. It has orifices and phallic attachments.” In his varied professional past, Koons has sold memberships for MoMA and worked as a commodities broker on Wall Street. As an artist he blends the worlds of advertising, commerce, and high culture to alter the way we perceive quotidian objects and to question the boundary between art and popular culture. Like Andy Warhol with his Campbell’s Soup cans and Brillo boxes, Koons elevates artifacts from everyday life into immortal art objects. He leaves their interpretation up to the viewer.
Gallery label from 2013.
Two immaculate, unused wet/dry vacuum cleaners are stacked one atop the other and hermetically sealed in Plexiglas boxes lit from below with fluorescent lights. Separated from their domestic role as cleaning machines, the objects are elevated to sculpture. "I chose the vacuum cleaner because of its anthropomorphic qualities," Koons has said. "It is a breathing machine. It also displays both male and female sexuality. It has orifices and phallic attachments." The curving armature of the hose circles the canister in an embrace, and the machine's bold maroon and gold stripes are colorful flourishes within an otherwise sterile environment.
In his varied professional past, Koons has sold memberships for MoMA and worked as a commodities broker on Wall Street. As an artist he blends the worlds of advertising, commerce, and high culture to alter the way we perceive quotidian objects and to question the boundary between art and popular culture. Like Andy Warhol with his Campbell's Soup cans and Brillo boxes, Koons elevates artifacts from everyday life, transforming mundane consumer appliances into immortal art objects. He leaves their interpretation up to the viewer.
Publication excerpt from The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights since 1980, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2007, p. 29.
