Shiny Intruder

Florence prepares you for beauty.
You arrive expecting marble, frescoes, domes, palaces and masterpieces that have shaped the way Europe understands art for centuries. After a while, even the extraordinary begins to feel almost natural. And then you walk into Palazzo Strozzi and meet Jeff Koons.
Perfectly polished surfaces. Monumental forms. Reflections, colour, seduction, irony. His work seems almost insolent in a city so deeply rooted in artistic tradition and perhaps that is exactly why it belongs there.

Koons is often described as superficial, commercial, excessive, even cynical. But standing in front of these objects, I found myself wondering whether that criticism is too easy.
Can something be beautiful and provocative at the same time? Can art openly embrace spectacle, luxury and popular culture and still make us think? And is our discomfort perhaps part of the work itself?
In Florence, surrounded by centuries of unquestioned masterpieces, Koons suddenly feels less like an intruder and more like a challenge.

I decided to answer that challenge in my own way. With a few photographs.