Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Would the Sun King approve?

From September next year, Jeff Koons -- the world's costliest living artist, who once pictured himself coupling with his porn- star wife Cicciolina -- will exhibit his giant sculptures indoors and outdoors at the Palace of Versailles.

Koons, 52, whose newer works include inflatable bunnies and puppies made of flowerpots, will stage his first major French museum exhibition at the former royal residence. His host: Jean- Jacques Aillagon, president of the Chateau de Versailles, who until June ran billionaire Francois Pinault's Palazzo Grassi exhibition venue in Venice.

``I sincerely believe that this artist, who is a product of neo-Pop culture, is very well suited to Versailles,'' said Aillagon, a former French culture minister, in a gilded chamber near the late Queen Marie Antoinette's apartment. ``Versailles is a Baroque object, and Baroque art, after all, was the 17th and 18th century's version of Pop Art.''

``In a place like Versailles, one mustn't arbitrarily or gratuitously provoke encounters that make no sense,'' explained the urbane 61-year-old, who for six years steered Paris's Pompidou Center. ``But when a contemporary artist poses questions and makes propositions that are in the spirit of this place, it is almost a duty to welcome that artist.''

Six months into the job, Aillagon is busy vamping up Versailles. He has asked artist Daniel Buren to decorate a staircase, fashion designer Agnes B. to create staff uniforms, and dancer Sylvie Guillem and the Tokyo Ballet to pay tribute to the late choreographer Maurice Bejart. He also plans a French equivalent of London's National Portrait Gallery, building on the Versailles portrait collection and adding depictions of modern-day figures such as footballer Zinedine Zidane.

Visitor-Friendly

As Versailles enters the fifth year of a 17-year, 500 million euro ($718 million) refurbishment program, Aillagon's other priority is to make the place more visitor-friendly.

Arts administrators are divided on the choice of Koons.

``I imagine it's meant to shock as much as anything else. Otherwise, one couldn't think it's terribly appropriate,'' said Timothy Clifford, former director of the National Galleries of Scotland and author of books on Baroque sculpture and Renaissance art. ``It's amusing and titillating.''

`Failure of Nerve'

Clifford said it showed ``a failure of nerve'' on the part of Versailles's administrators. ``There are so many other wonderful things that could be done in exhibitions at Versailles, but they probably wouldn't bring the public in the way Jeff Koons would,'' he said in a telephone interview.

Koons will show 12 to 15 of his works from Sept. 26 to the end of November as an extension of the ``Versailles Off'' annual two-night open house, a popular rendezvous in which contemporary art is exhibited on the palace grounds.

Contemporary-art curators see it as good news, and part of a trend at historic sites to display contemporary art.

Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London, said the point was to ``see if it makes sense and if both sides win from it.'' He recalled that Koons's ``Puppy'' looked striking when exhibited in 1992 next to a castle near Kassel, Germany.

``I don't think it would appear kitsch at all. It would appear a very contemporary answer,'' said Obrist. ``Versailles hasn't been particularly ambitious in terms of contemporary art, and it has extraordinary potential as a park.''

Eyebrow-Raising

Aillagon, asked about his eyebrow-raising choice of Koons, pointed out that the Louvre had commissioned a contemporary work by Anselm Kiefer earlier this year. ``You don't have the past on the one hand and the present on the other,'' he said. ``Works of art are timeless.''

Describing Koons as ``sensitive and intelligent'' and ``open to the experience of confronting his work with Versailles,'' Aillagon said Koons's ``Balloon Dog'' had looked good exhibited outside the 18th-century Palazzo Grassi. The work echoes Bernini's sculpture of Louis XIV on horseback, he said, while the horticultural ``Split Rocker'' and ``Puppy'' mirror the gardens of Versailles. Koons also did a stainless-steel sculpture of Louis XIV in 1986, Aillagon said.

``Split Rocker,'' the towering flowerpot installation owned by Pinault, may be loaned for the Versailles show, depending on whether it can be transported. Aillagon said Pinault, his former boss and a Koons collector, was likely to agree to lend works, though he hasn't yet been asked.

Aillagon is also keen to make the Palace of Versailles a more comfortable site for the nearly five million people who visit it every year, and who queue outside, share 17 female and four male toilets, and have no coatrooms or cafes.

Stopgap Measure

As a stopgap measure, a young Paris architecture practice (``Explorations Architecture'') will put up a 300-square-meter temporary shelter from April that will funnel people more comfortably through security gates and coat checks, and inform them, while they wait, of what's on. Extra toilets will also be installed at various spots throughout the chateau.

Versailles visitors will get improved guidance and signage. Currently, they face a mix of displays of all ages, including a 19th-century wing with Jacques-Louis David's celebrated painting of Napoleon crowning Josephine. They switch centuries and reigns, sometimes without realizing it, and come away with the ``totally confused'' impression, according to Aillagon, that ``Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette had a son named Napoleon.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Farah Nayeri in London at Farahn@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 21, 2007 12:34 EST