Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland is hosting the latest Jeff Koons showcase. The new exhibition displays Koons’ highly polarizing catalog in three different categories — The New, Banality and Celebration — all providing a key to the Koons sensibility. The New ironically focuses on the early work of Koons, the period where he incorporated cleaning appliances into his pieces. Celebration features a series of high-gloss steel sculptures and large-format paintings that depict nostalgia for childhood in a baroque way. Unlike The New, Celebration isn’t as cleanly siphoned off into a career period — Koons has been working on this theme throughout the past twenty years in tandem with other projects. Banality features some of the most significant work of Koons’, art that has become part of the mass culture dialogue. Conceived in 1988, Banality features large scale sculptures of porcelain and wood that signify the association between human and animal, concepts of innocence and guilt. The pieces both seek forgiveness and dissolve the notion of guilt, referencing renaissance and baroque art, popular culture and the world of toys and postcards. While many consider Koons’ kitschy and questionable at best (including many here at LIAS), his influence on contemporary art is hard to argue, and this is Switzerland’s first exhibit solely dedicated to the controversial artist. The exhibit is currently running at the Beyer Fondation in Basel, Switzerland until September 2, 2012.

via designboom