Avant Arte has announced its first collaboration with Jeff Koons, bringing one of the artist’s most recognisable works into a domestic scale for the first time.
Launching 17th March 2026, the project reimagines Koons’s monumental Split-Rocker as a limited-edition collectible carved from tinted beech wood. Produced in support of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), proceeds from the edition will directly fund the museum’s programme and collection — turning a symbol of spectacle into a vehicle for public access.
“I’m really excited to be working with Avant Arte and LACMA. When thinking about an edition that could celebrate ‘Split-Rocker’, wood really seemed like the natural material. It’s a living material – that gives it a spirituality.”
Jeff Koons
Originally conceived in the 1990s by combining two of his son’s toys, a rocking horse and a rocking dinosaur, Split-Rocker debuted in 2000 as a towering “living” sculpture. Today, the 37-foot form, densely planted with tens of thousands of flowers, anchors the grounds of LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries, where horticulture, nostalgia and monumental scale collide in typical Koons fashion.
The new edition distils that exuberance into something intimate without losing its surreal charm. Produced in two colourways — Pink/Blue and Pink/Orange — each limited to 999 works, the pieces translate the artist’s fascination with childhood objects, hybrid forms and cultural memory into a tactile, collectible object. The first release is scheduled to arrive in March, with a second wave following in July.
Alongside the physical edition, Avant Arte has launched an unexpected digital counterpart: a browser-based video game inspired by Split-Rocker. Players guide the character through a whimsical landscape populated by figures from Koons’s wider universe, a playful extension of the artist’s long-standing interest in spectacle, entertainment and participation. High scorers during the activation period will even receive a complimentary edition, collapsing the boundaries between gaming culture, collecting and contemporary art.
“Jeff Koons is one of the most influential artists of our time, and Split-Rocker stands as one of his most iconic works. Bringing this sculpture into a limited edition while supporting LACMA, home to the current installation of Split-Rocker, feels particularly meaningful. This release offers a new way for audiences to engage with a work that has become part of the cultural landscape and directly contributes to the largest art museum in the western United States.”
Christian Luiten, Head of Artist Community and Co-founder, Avant Arte
Koons describes wood as “a living material” that brings a spiritual dimension to the work, a fitting choice for a sculpture originally animated by plant life. For Avant Arte, the collaboration continues its strategy of pairing blue-chip artists with accessible formats, while generating tangible support for major cultural institutions.
At once toy-like, devotional and unmistakably Koons, the project reframes Split-Rocker not as a distant public monument but as an object designed to circulate across homes, screens and new audiences, extending the work’s reach far beyond the museum lawn.
Split-Rocker is set to be released via a randomized draw. Entries for the draw are now open exclusively on Avant Arte’s website and will close on 17th March. Successful entrants will be notified within 24 hours of the draw’s closing.avantarte.com/jeff-koons-game
A portal into nostalgia, players can take control of Split-Rocker and embark on a journey through Koons’s universe, encountering a cast of characters drawn from his iconic body of work. Participants can register to save their scores on the leaderboard, with the highest score at the end of the activation window on 9 March winning a complimentary edition.
About the artist
Known for challenging the limitations of fabrication, Koons transforms everyday images and objects into works of art that engage the viewer in a dialogue with our present and our past. For four decades, Koons has created works that explore themes of self-acceptance and transcendence. His mirror-polished surfaces, seen in iconic works such as Balloon Dog and Rabbit, invite the viewer to see themselves, quite literally. Koons has also gained global recognition for his monumental public sculptures, including Puppy and Split-Rocker.
Born in York, Pennsylvania in 1955, Koons studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, his work has been shown in major institutions worldwide, from MoMA and the Tate to the Guggenheim and Centre Pompidou. Recent exhibitions include Shine at Palazzo Strozzi, Lost in America in Doha, and Reflections: Picasso/Koons in Granada. The artist has received numerous awards and honours in recognition of his cultural achievements, from France’s National de la Légion d’Honneur to the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of the Arts. Koons lives and works in New York City.
