Puppy (1996) - Jeff Koon

• Jeff Koons, Puppy (1996), Museum of Contemporary Art
• Puppy was the 10th of the Kaldor Public Art Projects
• Puppy was presented in association with From Christo and Jeanne-Claude to Jeff Koons: John Kaldor Art Projects and Collection
• Puppy was the first exhibition of John Kaldor’s extensive and eclectic collection
• Puppy was based on a small wooden sculpture of a terrier which Jeff Koons created in 1991
• The original manifestation of Puppy was a diminutive 52 cm tall
• Koons chose the terrier because he believed it would be disarming and non-threatening regardless of the scale
• The 1996 iteration of Puppy is 12.4 metres tall, supporting 55,000 kgs of soil and 60,000 flowering plants
• Puppy was created as a symbol of love and happiness
• Puppy was firmly embedded in Koons’ vernacular of late capitalist excess
• Medium of Puppy


  • Stainless steel
  • Soil
  • Flowering plants
• Dimensions of Puppy

  • 40 feet 8 3/16 inches x 27 feet 2 3/4 inches x 29 feet 10 1/4 inches
  • 12 meters 40 cm x 830 cm x 910 cm
• Artwork categorisation

  • Sculpture
• Koons' techniques

  • Utilises sophisticated computer modelling
  • References the 18th-century formal garden
• Puppy


  A sculpture depicting a West Highland White Terrier puppy executed in a variety of flowers on a steel substructure
• Puppy is now situated outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain
• The sculpture was designed and created on Sydney Harbour at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 1995 as a Kaldor project
• The Sydney Puppy held around 60,000 plants
• Puppy's appearance

  Endearing appearance that is not threatening regardless of its scale
• Koons designed this public sculpture to relentlessly entice, create optimism, and instil "confidence and security”
• Koons is attempting to recreate aspects of an 18th-century formal garden
• Puppy is based on Koons's small wooden sculpture White Terrier, 1991
• The puppy was inspired by Koons's visits to baroque cathedrals
• Puppy achieves a balance between the symmetrical and the asymmetrical and between the eternal and the ephemeral
• Puppy's large size challenges traditional artistic practices
• Puppy was made by a group
• Puppy was not displayed in a museum or gallery
• The audience became the general public
• The concept of audience is observed to be evolving
• Puppy looks different in different locations due to the change in the environment causing the flowers to grow or wilt
• Jeff Koons redefined the everyday within his artworks through his iconic creation, "Puppy"
• Puppy transformed the mundane concept of a puppy into a monumental, awe-inspiring piece of art
• Koons infused Puppy with extraordinary scale and attention to detail
• The use of colourful flowers as the sculpture's exterior skin emphasizes the reinterpretation of the commonplace
• Koons' ability to take everyday subjects and elevate them into larger-than-life, hyperrealistic forms was central to his artistic approach
• "Puppy" serves as a prime example of how Jeff Koons redefined the everyday by imbuing it with a sense of grandeur and artistic significance