Untitled (Girl with Dolphin and Monkey)
2006

Commissioned by the Whitney for the Museum’s 75th Anniversary Photography Portfolio, Jeff Koons created this surreal combination of pin-up girl, dolphin and monkey against a banal but colorful background. Referencing his characteristic themes of childhood, consumerism, and sexuality, the photograph includes one of Koons’s favored motifs: inflatables that resemble children’s pool toys. Koons began using inflatable figures in the late 1970s; they have since appeared in his paintings and photographs and as enlarged cast metal sculptures that are almost indistinguishable from the original objects. Koons’s fascination with blow-up toys stems from a Styrofoam swimming apparatus he had as a child. As he remarked, “it was like a life-saving tank. . .It gave me a great sense of independence. Pool toys are inflatable, just like people. Inflatables really are metaphors for the continuation of life.”