Jeff Koons installation in CAT Scan room of Advocate Children's Hospital. New York Times.

As part of a new initiative to bring contemporary art into hospitals and other health care facilities around the country, RxArt, a New York nonprofit group headed by Diane Brown, will install several pieces by Jeff Koons in the CAT Scan room of Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a feature in last Sunday’s New York Times Style magazine says. The works are slated to be installed on every wall of the room sometime this month, and include a large painting of four smiling monkeys on the pediatric CAT Scan machine itself.

Koons’ installation is RxArt’s most amibitious to date. Brown told the Global Giving network that the idea to install artwork in a CAT Scan room came from her own personal experiences receiving a CT Scan.

“Rather than a scary experience in a cold white space, we hope children undergoing this test will feel like they are entering into a fantastic visual adventure.

“The fact that the Hope Children’s Hospital project is centered on Koons’s transformation of the CT Scan machine is especially significant to the origins of RxArt. The initial idea for RxArt came to me when I was undergoing a CT scan and found that the only way to distract myself from the frightening procedure was to imagine an artwork (a Matthew Ritchie painting) going up the wall and across the ceiling. By entering into this artist’s complex imagery, I was mentally transported out of the sterile environment of the hospital. RxArt was founded based on the belief that art has the ability to not only transcend but to transform its settings and viewers.”

Other projects by artists such as Rob Pruitt, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, and Will Cotton that have already been installed in various hospitals can be viewed here.

Via AO Art Observed.

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