BLOW-UP

Jeff Koons is one of contemporary art’s nastier polymaths: What other artist has made such ranging use of his own penis? Active since the ’80s, Koons has always split the art crowd down the middle, a squabble over whether a commercially successful artist who sells giant metallic sculptures of balloon dogs could be anything more than a peddler of elaborately wrought kitsch. It’s a false choice, of course, because, #realtalk, he’s definitely both. Starting today, the Whitney exhibits work from across his career for a retrospective that maybe doesn’t need to leave the question so open, but is an excellent chance — the first, actually — to see Koons’s work spanning a half-century.

Wednesdays-Sundays, 11 a.m. Starts: June 27. Continues through Oct. 19, 2014