BASEL, SWITZERLAND.- At the invitation of Art 33 Basel, Jeff Koons, the famous American artist, will visit the international art show and the Basel museums over the weekend of June 15/16. Then, on Sunday evening, he will be the guest at a talk show to be held at the Basel City Theater before subsequently attending a performance of the play «Jeff Koons» by Rainald Goetz in the main auditorium.



The 47-year-old American artist Jeff Koons is one of the most colorful personalities in the world of art. At the invitation of Art Basel and thanks to the mediation of Basel art collector Ulla Dreyfus, with whom he has long been acquainted, he will be coming to Basel over the weekend of June 15/16, 2002. On Saturday, June 15 Jeff Koons intends to visit Basel’s museums of art. On Sunday, June 16, the artist will accompany Art Basel Director Samuel Keller on a tour of the art show and will call in at those booths showing his work (Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin and Sonnabend Gallery, New York). Jeff Koons will be answering questions posed by journalists and visitors to the art show between 12 noon and 12.30 p.m. in the «Art Lobby», the new meeting and communications center in the «Art Unlimited» exhibition hall.



At 5.30 p.m. he will arrive at Basel’s City Theater where he will speak about his work during a public talk show. Koons will be interviewed by Bice Curiger, editor-in-chief of the art publication Parkett and curator at the Kunsthaus Zurich. At 7 p.m. Koons will attend a performance of Rainald Goetz’s play «Jeff Koons». The production was one of the highlights of the 1999/2000 theater season and was invited both to the Berlin Theater Meeting and to the Festival of Authors in Mühlheim, where Rainald Goetz received the prestigious Dramatist’s Prize for his script. The drama magazine «Theater heute» named «Jeff Koons» the «German Play of the Year».



Jeff Koons’ career began in the eighties with works such as «Hoover» and objects made of polished stainless steel. He shot to stardom in the early 90s with his «Made in Heaven» series in which he immortalized himself in pornographic poses with his then-wife, Italian sex star «La Cicciolina», as Adam and Eve. His works are exhibited in many leading public art collections (Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hirschorn Museum, Washington; Tate Modern, London; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam etc.) The American also made a name for himself with a wider public through his monumental floral sculpture «Puppy» which was shown in Kassel in 1992, in Bilbao in 1997 and in the Rockefeller Center in New York in 2000.