Skip to Content

Bourgeois Bust- Jeff and Ilona

A work made of marble.

Image actions

  • A work made of marble.

Date:

1991

Artist:

Jeff Koons
American, born 1955

About this artwork

Jeff Koons originally made this work for his now notorious Made in Heaven exhibition, in which he explored concepts of love by referencing his own marriage to Italian porn star Ilona Staller. He explains, “With Bourgeois Bust, I wanted … to be able to bring Ilona’s body and my body down together in a point so that it’s a heart—a symbol of love—and take the flesh and cut through it to form it that way without any sense of violence.” Here the couple appears within a traditional Baroquestyle portrait bust like those of 18th-century sculptor Antonio Canova (whose work you can see in the museum’s galleries of European painting and sculpture). Bourgeois Bust sets in tension the elegance of neoclassical sculpture and the irreverence of deploying its idealized terms in the postmodern era.

Status

On View, Gallery 292

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Jeff Koons

Title

Bourgeois Bust- Jeff and Ilona

Place

United States (Object made in)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1991

Medium

Marble

Edition

3 of 3, plus 1 artist's proof

Dimensions

110.5 × 73.4 × 55.9 cm (43 1/2 × 29 × 22 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection

Reference Number

2015.141

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

Share

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Learn more

Image actions

Share