Jeff Koons' Lady Gaga ARTPOP album cover deconstructed by our art critic

Jeff Koons is a baroque artist for a pop age, a lover of energy and sex and beauty whose ARTPOP album cover – released by Lady Gaga last night – is a masterpiece of mad hilarity. It's a throwback to Koons at his boldest when he portrayed himself and the **** star Ilona Staller (briefly his wife) as naked lovers. Some may be cynical about Lady Gaga's attempts to claim this mantle but, for me, to steal the title of that infamous exhibition, this marriage of art and pop really is Made In Heaven.



1. A wind god blows perfumed air to waft the goddess of love on her way in this detail from Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.

2. Jeff Koons started his career in 1980s New York and for all its sophisticated imagery, this cover nostalgically evokes the raw collaged look of old New Wave album sleeves.

3. The glistening metal ball between Lady Gaga’s thighs mirrors her world and reveals bright shining lights, mysterious figures, a photoshoot maybe.

4. This sphinx-like image of the singer mixes the smooth sensuality of the neo-classical sculptor Antonio Canova with the digital ethereality of a cybersex goddess.

5. Botticelli’s Venus can just be glimpsed covering a breast, while Lady Gaga cups both breasts with the same divine self-possession.

6. Daphne, a nymph who was pursued by the lovestruck god Apollo, is about to change into a tree to escape his lust in this glimpse of a statue by Gianlorenzo Bernini.