Jeff Koons’s Versailles show attacked

The stuffier elements of the French arts and culture establishment are attempting to stop an exhibition by the American super-pop artist Jeff Koons (pictured) being shown at the Palace of Versailles, the 17th-century chateau outside Paris that was home to the French monarchy until the Revolution.

The exhibition, which is due to open next month, will place 15 works by Koons, the so-called "King of Kitsch", in the Grand Apartment and Hall of Mirrors. These will include Hanging Heart, a 9ft stainless-steel monument that fetched a record price for contemporary art when it was sold for £12m last year, and a porcelain representation of Michael Jackson and his chimp Bubbles. Also on show will be Split-Rocker, an 11-tonne stainless steel sculpture covered in 90,000 flowers, destined for the palace gardens.

Critics are livid. "Organising such an exhibition in the chateau is an outrage to the work of Louis XIV," says Arnaud-Aaron Upinsky, chairman of the right-wing National Writers' Union, which is leading the anti-Koons campaign. "This project is felt by many French people to be a veritable sullying of the most sacred aspects of our heritage and identity."

Edouard de Royere, chairman of the Heritage Foundation, concurs: "I am not against contemporary art but I am shocked by its intrusion into a magic place such as Versailles." All this has put the artist on the backfoot, though he will no doubt be delighted by the publicity. He told the French daily Le Figaro. "I don't intend to invade historic rooms, fill them with Jeff Koons and denature them. I want to capture the harmony of the place."