230. Pink Panther. Jeff Koons. 1988 CE Glazed Porcelain.

• Form
  • Artificially idealized female form: overly yellow hair, bright red lips, large breasts, pronounced red fingernails; overly fake look
  • Life size
• Content
  • The woman is Jayne Mansfield, a popular screen star and a Playboy playmate
  • Pink Panther, a cartoon character, generally seen as an animated figure
  • The panther has a tender and delicate gesture around Jayne
• Context
  • Jeff Koons is a Pennsylvania-born artist, working in New York
  • This work is a commentary on celebrity romance, sexuality, commercialism, stereotypes, pop culture, and sentimentality.
  • The work is kitsch but is amd of “high art” porcelain
  • Creates a permanent reality out of something that is ephemeral and never meant to be exhibited
  • Part of a series called The Banality at a show in the Sonnenbend Gallery in New York in 1988.