The Museum of Cycladic Art will present to the public for the first time Balloon Venus Lespugue (Orange) (2013–2019) by the internationally renowned American artist Jeff Koons. Exploring the significance of the figure of Aphrodite from the Paleolithic era to the present day, the work will be on view from March 19 to August 31, 2026, at the Stathatos Mansion, together with ten replicas of Upper Paleolithic “Aphrodite” figurines, posing the question of how the universal archetype of fertility transcends time and space.
For this particular work, Koons draws inspiration from the Paleolithic “Venus” of Lespugue, a figurine carved from mammoth ivory that dates back roughly 28,000 years. Referring to the figure of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility, her imagery has consistently influenced Koons’ work since the late 1970s. The artist’s interpretation of the Lespugue “Aphrodite,” part of the Antiquity series begun in 2008, incorporates a wide range of references from art history—from Botticelli and Titian to Duchamp and Brancusi—as well as broader, timeless concepts of beauty and form. Through a meticulous, years-long process, Koons transformed the fetishistic original, known for its highly exaggerated curves, into a monumental sculpture that appears to be made of balloons and recalls the proportions of Giacometti’s works.
The Museum will frame Koons’s work with ten replicas of Upper Paleolithic “Aphrodite” figurines — all on loan from the museums that house the immovable originals. Among them is the replica of the Lespugue “Aphrodite” from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, which served as the direct source of inspiration for Koons’s sculpture made of polished, reflective stainless steel. The “Aphrodite” figurines represent one of humanity’s earliest aesthetic codes: a deeply abstract depiction of fertility, survival, and continuity, rendered in compact and portable forms. Koons’s interpretation revisits this prehistoric visual language through a radically different medium and context: the industrial, hyper-material world of the 21st century.
Koons’s work explores how ancient sacred representations are mirrored in contemporary humanity’s fascination with form, surface, desire, and inventiveness. Through the reflective surface of Balloon Venus Lespugue (Orange), visitors are invited to consider how material transformation alters or preserves symbolic meaning, and how contemporary art can reconnect us with ancient aspects of human existence.
Balloon Venus Lespugue (Orange) (2013–2019) comes from the Homem Sonnabend Collection (property of Antonio Homem Sonnabend and Phokion Potamianos Homem) and will be exhibited at the Museum of Cycladic Art for the first time. The presentation will be accompanied by a new publication featuring essays by Jeff Koons and leading scholars, detailing recent research on the Paleolithic period in Greece and abroad.
A few words about Jeff Koons
The internationally acclaimed artist Jeff Koons (b. 1955, York, Pennsylvania) is widely known for his iconic sculptures Rabbit and Balloon Dog, as well as for his monumental floral works Puppy and Split-Rocker. Using everyday objects, his work revolves around themes such as self-acceptance and transcendence.
Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, Koons’s works have been shown in major museums and galleries around the world. His work was the subject of the major retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2014, which later traveled to the Centre Pompidou and the Guggenheim Bilbao.
Koons has received numerous awards and distinctions in recognition of his cultural achievements. Notably, President Jacques Chirac promoted him to Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour. He has also been awarded the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts and was the first artist-in-residence at Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. He serves on the Board of Directors of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) and co-founded the Koons Family Institute, dedicated to combating child abduction and exploitation worldwide.
Jeff Koons lives and works in New York.
The Homem Sonnabend Collection
The Homem Sonnabend Collection is the private collection of Antonio Homem Sonnabend and Phokion Potamianos Homem. The collection includes works from the Renaissance in dialogue with representative pieces of African and Oceanic art, as well as the decorative arts of the early 20th century. At the same time, it highlights key figures of postwar and contemporary art — from Pop Art to Arte Povera — along with notable works from the 1980s and 1990s.
The collection spans a wide range of media, including photography, sculpture, and painting, featuring works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mario Schifano, Lucio Fontana, Jannis Kounellis, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Jeff Koons, among others.
www.sonnabendcollectionfoundation.org
www.sonnabendmantova.it
