Jeff Koons “Hanging Heart (Gold/Magenta), 1994-2006
“Hanging Heart has a reflective surface because it’s important to me that when the viewer interacts with it that they realize that the art happens inside them,” Koons explained. “Affirmation of the self is really important to me—that, when the viewer comes, they realize that nothing happens without them. If they move to the right, everything shifts. If they move to the left, it’s a different kind of abstraction that occurs in the surface. Everything depends on them.”
The work is a reflective illusion. The heart looks like a light balloon but it actually weighs more than 3,000 pounds and is made of steel.