Jeff Koons: Pink Panther
Perhaps it is because I grew up watching the Pink Panther, or that I tap danced as a little pink panther onstage to the theme song, but this piece is one of my favourites: From Jeff Koon's Banality sculpture series collection. The Pink Panther was created in 1988. It was sold at Christie's in 2014 for $15.8 million.
The Pink Panther amuses and yet assaults the senses as a woman parodies in a dress nearly undone with her head over the shoulder, back arched to emphasise her sexuality while holding Pink Panther over her shoulder who has a look of weariness in his eyes. It's almost a parody to the power of men in a time where feminism was rising. It's almost kitsch - seems to be a rather large plastic figurine as opposed to sculpture, and yet our childhood innocence and mass tastes cannot withstain us from the fact that it does attract our attention and create a smile of this classic bemusement.
