Art Hag

The Whitney Museum's final exhibition at its Madison Avenue location is a blockbuster—with extended museum hours to accommodate the hordes of visitors. When Jeff Koons: A Retrospective, the museum-wide exhibition of the divisive artist's oeuvre closes on Sunday, October 19th, it will mark the end of an era for the Whitney which will move downtown to the Meatpacking District to new Renzo Piano designed digs (opening Spring 2015).

Organized chronologically, the retrospective showcases the 59-year-old artist's polarizing works throughout the years including vacuum cleaners encased in plexiglass, inflatable flowers and bunnies, basketballs floating in tanks of distilled water and sodium chloride, large-scale replicas of kitschy figurines, pornographic images of the artist with his former wife La Cicciolina (the Italian porn star and politician), plus his more recent stainless steel balloon animals, his decades-in-the-making, aluminum mountain of Play-Doh, and his Gazing Ball series.

Reminiscent of a Dollar Store, galleries stocked with colorful plastic and inflatable toys, balloons, sponges, lawn chairs, and assorted tacky tchotchkes, the Marcel Breuer building is worth a visit during its final days as the Whitney and before The Metropolitan Museum of Art moves its modern and contemporary collections into the vacated space. Learn more about Jeff Koons: A Retrospective at whitney.org. Until October 19th.

Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Dr. J Silver Series), 1985

Inflatable Flowers (Four Tall Purple with Plastic Figures), 1978 (partially refabricated 2014)

Inflatable Flower and Bunny (Tall White and Pink Bunny), 1979 (partially refabricated 2014)

Five Double-Sided Floor Mirrors with Inflatable Flowers (Short Blue, Short Orange, Short Pink, Short Purple, Short Yellow), 1978 (partially refabricated 2014) (front), and Sponges with Single Double-Sided Floor Mirror, 1978 (partially refabricated 2014) (back)