THE NEW

"That’s what I really wanted you to think about, how you can’t be new. To have your own integrity you have to live and you’re not immortal. But here the machine can just have integrity forever by not participating".

In 1980 The New Museum of Contemporary Art invited Jeff Koons to create a piece for its 5th Avenue storefront window. He responded with a series featuring a number of appliances, primarily vacuum cleaners and floor polishers, which he removed from their packaging and placed inside acrylic cases under fluorescent lights. These objects were not altered, were also never used, thus they never served the purpose for which they were designed; in this manner, they retain the aura of newness that appeals so strongly to consumers. Koons selects his appliances carefully based on their anthropomorphic qualities, viewing them as quasi-lifelike machines that inflate and deflate like human beings when they breathe. The shapes and titles of these works reflect dichotomies such as male and female, dry and wet, or life and death. These objects, designed to clean, manage to retain their pristine appearance under the bright fluorescent lights reminiscent of Dan Flavin´s Minimalist creations.