Snapchat Teams Up With Artist Jeff Koons, Where To Find Virtual Sculptures

It started with a countdown clock over a photo of New York’s Central Park on Snapchat’s site art.snapchat.com. The clock appeared Monday and rumors immediately began to swirl about what Snap might be announcing when the time was up.

It only took a few hours for some news outlets to figure out that the countdown was leading to the announcement of a collaboration between Snapchat and artist Jeff Koons.

Sure enough when the details were revealed Tuesday the announcement was about a collaboration between Snapchat and artists, starting with American artist Jeff Koons. The collaboration is beginning with Koons, his art will be arriving in augmented reality form starting Tuesday in nine locations worldwide. More locations will be added to the list, a Snapchat spokesperson told International Business Times.

The locations each feature one of Koons’ pieces, either the Balloon Dog, Swan, Rabbit, Popeye or Play-duh. The sculpted works resemble everyday objects and are frequently made of reflective metal that mirror their surroundings. They’ll appear as geo-lenses that show up in specific locations around the world. The current locations and which sculpture is there is outlined on the art.snapchat.com website.

Where are the Jeff Koons virtual sculpture lenses?

New York’s Central Park and London’s Hyde Park each have golden Balloon Dogs. The Champ de Mars in Paris, France and Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois have the silver Balloon Bunny. The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia and the National Mall in Washington D.C. have the Balloon Popeye. On the Venice Boardwalk in Venice, California and at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil the Balloon Play-duh. Lastly Roadhouse Park in Toronto, Canada has the Balloon Swan.

The sculptures will stay in those cities before moving locations in a few weeks. But if you’re near on you can find it by opening lenses in the app, do this by simply tapping the camera screen and swiping through the lens options. The Jeff Koons lens will appear first if you’re close enough to it. Once you’re within a few dozen meters, the virtual sculpture should appear, said Snapchat.

The new webpage features maps as well as photos of the art installations. There’s also a button that reads “Artists Welcome” in the upper right part of the webpage. Clicking it pulls up a form that says “We would love to work with you. Please tell us more.”

As well as a spot for name, email, a link to an art portfolio and a spot for more information. It’s unclear what Snapchat plans to do with this information at this point or whether the company would end up collaborating with more artists who submit on the site.