Beware the Giant Floating Rabbit

Oh Jeff Koons you wacky wabbit you. Last week’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade must have made you such a happy little bunny. In fact, I’m sure it made you a chunk more change, which no doubt you’re in need of (yeah, right).

For those of you who chose to stay tucked warmly away in your beds on Thanksgiving morning you missed a gigantic silver “Rabbit” balloon drifting through Times Square behind the new Shrek balloon. Art lovers might not have recognized it immediately, but there it was none the less-art amidst all that commercialism.

Jeff Koons famous 1986 stainless-steel Rabbit sculpture was transformed into a 53 x 26-foot inflatable for this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The giant bunny joined Shrek, Hello Kitty Supercute, Abby Cadabby, and Arrtie the Pirate as a new character in the parade, but it has the distinct honor of being the first piece commissioned for Macy's Blue Sky Gallery. One of the biggest challenges was replicating Rabbit's reflective surface, which was achieved by covering the helium balloon with metallic-coated fabric

The gigantic metallic monochrome bunny stood out from other more well-known balloons made up of bright colors and signature details that made them recognizable to all. The house-sized version of Shrek, for example, had green skin, brown-and-red plaid pants and a goofy grin.

First of all, there was its metallic monochrome color, whereas most of its inflatable fellow travelers were medleys of bright colors and signature details. The truck-size version of Shrek, for example, just ahead of the Koons, had green skin, brown-and-red plaid pants and a goofy grin. Koon’s rabbit had a shimmering astronaut-suit blankness that made it abstract, “a thing in itself” as the ole Minimalists liked to say, that was there just for the sheer spectacle of it.

This isn’t the first odd installment of public art for Koon’s. Several years ago a topiary “Puppy” towered over Rockefeller Center. And of course, there are the paintings and sculptures of he and his porn star, Italian politician first wife Ilona Staller in flagrante delicto which are well…unforgettable if not disturbing. That being said-most of his work and primary themes are child-like awe, innocence, and out-and-out joy.

In 1986, Koons made one of his best-known works: a Mylar Easter bunny cast in highly polished stainless steel. The taut, gleaming result, about three feet high, created a wonderful tension between the expected lightness and softness of the original and the palpable rigidity and weight of the facsimile.

This tension was further cultivated in a recent series of Koons sculptures that are exact but enlarged replicas of twisted balloon animals. Their chrome-finish colors suggest luxurious automobiles, but their forms seem feather light, capable of being wafted aloft by the slightest wind.

Now that has happened. The “Rabbit” has returned to its original soft form, and, many times larger at more than 50 feet high, taken to the air. Floating overhead yesterday, it was a jubilant reminder of the way contemporary artists dip in and out of mainstream life, effortlessly working high, low and in between. That is where the latest, biggest “Rabbit” is suspended, and where it will stay. Owned by Macy’s and slated to fly in future parades, it will not be turning up at auction any time soon.