Jeff Koons' 37-Foot 'Split-Rocker' to Blossom at LACMA

Summary

• LACMA has recently announced the acquisition of Jeff Koons’ Split-Rocker (2000), which will be house outside the freshly completed David Geffen Gallery building.
• Expected to fully bloom and open to the public in 2026, the sculpture will anchor the museum’s new public art programming, taking place on its 3.5-acre, indoor-outdoor expansion.

After stops at Versailles and Rockefeller Center, Jeff Koons’ 37-foot-tall Split-Rocker will call the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) its permanent home. Gifted to the museum by art collectors Lynda and Stewart Resnick, the large-scale artist proof will be planted outside the new David Geffen galleries later this year, and will anchor the new outdoor public art program integral to LACMA’s freshly completed expansion.

Koons marries two halves of children’s toys for the flower-forward piece – his son’s rocking belonging to his son and a dinosaur – evoking the cartoonish, nostalgic charm at the heart of his most famed works. Planted in its metal skeleton are 50,000 native succulents, perennials, annuals and other blooms. According to the Los Angeles Times, the acquisition and attuning of Split-Rocker was years in the making, as Koons and LACMA consulted a team of local horticulturalists for the selection of drought-tolerant flowers fit for the SoCal climate.

The Peter Zumthor-designed Geffen Galleries, which will house the museum’s permanent collection, include a new building and outdoor spaces spanning 3.5 acres across both sides of Wilshire Houlevard. Additional works to look forward to feature the likes of Diana Thater, Mariana Castillo Deball, Liz Glynn, Pedro Reyes and more.

Split-Rocker will be seeded later this summer with hopes to be fully bloomed by next April. In the meantime, Kamasi Washington and his 100-person ensemble are taking over the 110,000-square-feet Geffen galleries for a run of performances on June 26-28. Head to the museum’s website for more details.