page_title: Kiepenkerl
section_title: 1987 statue
hierarchical_section_title: Kiepenkerl / 1987 statue
caption_attribution_description: English: stainless steel sculpture by artist Jeff Koons, located in the Hirshhorn Museum's Sculpture Garden, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
context_page_description: Kiepenkerl was originally a sandstone statue of a travelling merchant created by August Schmiemann in Münster, Germany in 1896. Destroyed in World War II, it was re-created in cast metal by Albert Mazzotti Jr in 1953. The statue now stands in a small square in the Old Quarter of Münster. In 1987 American sculptor Jeff Koons created a replica of the design in polished cast stainless steel.
context_section_description: For the 1987 Sculpture Projects Münster, American sculptor Jeff Koons created a replica of the statue in polished cast stainless steel. Koons produced an edition of three; one is on display at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (38°53.329′N 77°1.380′W).
  
  The guide for the Sculpture Projects Münster includes these notes by Georg Jappe:
  The Kiepenkerl monument symbolizes the man who comes to town with a few eggs, potatoes, and rabbits in his "Kiepe" (a huge basket carried on the back). Actually he is a "Kötter" (a tenant farmer). The statue, created by an academic sculptor, became especially popular when, during the war, everything was burnt down, only the statue remained standing and then was blasted by a tank crew. The will to survive during the hoarding times: as early as 1953, the city of Münster still in ruins, Theodor Heuss inaugurated a new life-size Kiepenkerl monument in bronze.
  
  Bronze is art. That is the only art in this restoration monument. Jeff Koons now has recast it in stainless steel which he calls the "material of the masses" (a highly complicated procedure: as the form does not correspond to any industrial standard, the various parts had to be smelted at 1800 degrees Centigrade and cast one by one and then welded together) and finally gave it a high mirror polish to create a "false front of luxury".
caption: The 1987 replica of the Kiepenkerl statue by Jeff Koons
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