"The body of work is based around statuary representing different periods of Western European Art. Each work in the show is coded to be more or less specific about art being used as a symbol or representation of a certain theme that takes place in art".
In 1986, Ileana Sonnabend´s prestigious SoHo gallery invited Jeff Koons to participate in a group show. There he presented a series titled Statuary, consisting of sculptures made of shiny stainless steel that reflected archetypes and images of different historical characters. Among other pieces, he created a life-size bust of Louis XIV, the symbol of absolute monarchy and of art made to order for a privileged few; a small sculpture with the oversize head depicting 20th-century mass culture icon Bob Hope; and the bust of a lovely Italian woman who was the object of desire in a 17th-century novel. All of them are "representations of representations" that have been stripped of any explicit reference to the original sources, making it impossible to associate these figures with the models that inspired them.The faceless inflatable rabbit—one of the earliest and best known of Koons’s creations, related to his work from the 1970s—is transformed here into a stainless steel blow-up toy, always full of air and in perfect condition. The rabbit is an archetype with multiple interpretations: if associated with the sexually charged Playboy bunny, it might have erotic connotations, or it could be a symbol of childlike innocence if read as a depiction of the guileless Easter bunny.
