Koons exhibition: Let them see kitsch

The contrast is outlandish. The match is perfect. Seventeen monumental sculptures by Jeff Koons, contemporary king of kitsch and master of the over-the-top, will be displayed from today at the palace of Versailles, monument to the OTT tastes of the French kings of the 18th century. The title of the exhibition might be: "Let them see kitsch." Some traditionalists, however, are not amused.

A group of far-right French authors has complained that displaying Koons' work – including a giant metal balloon dog and a vast cartoon animal's head made of flower pots – in a royal palace amounts to a form of lèse majesté. The president of the foundation which defends French national heritage, Edouard de Royère, argues that contemporary art "sows distraction and destruction" and has no place in a "perfectly balanced" building like the Palace of Versailles.

One of the curators of the exhibition, Laurent Lebon, is unrepentant. "Koons, with his obsession with symmetry, will emerge [from this show] as an ultra-classical artist," M. Lebon said. "It is Versailles which will look like a folly."

Mr Koons, 53, one of the most sought-after and expensive of contemporary artists, is rather more polite about the majesty of Versailles than M. Lebon. He says that it is an "honour" to be asked to exhibit in such a "temple of light". He abandoned his giant studio in New York last month and spent three weeks in Versailles with his family to supervise the installation of the first large retrospective exhibition of some of his best-known monumental sculptures.

Contemporary art should not be regarded as a "prisoner of the present", Koons told the French press. The Versailles exhibition would help to place his work, "in the context of the history of art and of history full-stop". The show would, "demonstrate the philosophical character" of his art, which was inspired by reflections on "power, love and time".

Mingling New York and Versailles, the 21st and the 18th centuries, the baroque and the pop, has presented a practical problem, as well as a political one. It cost more than £1.6m – mostly sponsored by the French billionaire and Koons fan, François Pinault – to transport the gigantic sculptures from all over the globe and install them in the largest royal palace in Europe.

A vast lobster, made from red aluminium floats above the Salon de Mars; a 9ft-wide blue moon made of inox dominates the Hall of Mirrors where the treaty to end the Great War was signed; the brilliant, kitsch colours of Large Vase of Flowers illuminates the gilded kitsch of the Queen's Bedroom. Hanging Heart, a 7ft-wide red heart wrapped in a ribbon, which sold last year for £13m, completes the tour. According to Mr Koons, it symbolises "generosity, warmth and romance"

One sculpture was too large to fit even into the gigantic palace of Versailles. Split Rocker, 25ft high and weighing 11 tons, has not been assembled and shown in public since it was bought by M. Pinault at an art festival in Avignon eight years ago. The Disneyesque half-horse, half-dinosaur, made from flower pots and wood, has been erected in the gardens of the Orangerie in the palace grounds. More than 90,000 petunias and geraniums have been planted in the pots for the duration of the exhibition. (Whether the flowers will survive the winds and frosts until the show ends on 14 December is open to question.)

There has only once previously been a temporary exhibition at Versailles – and that of 18th century furniture. There has never previously been a Koons exhibition in France. Only one Koons work is owned by the French state but more than a dozen are owned by M. Pinault, whose family empire controls, among other things, Gucci, Printemps, FNAC and Christie's.

The idea of mingling the traditional and the contemporary is all the rage among curators in France. The Louvre in Paris came under fire earlier this year for displaying works by the violent and provocative Belgian contemporary artist and choreographer, Jan Fabre, amid its collections of 16th and 17th century French and Italian paintings.

The complaints against the Koons exhibition at Versailles began with a relatively obscure royalist and right wing authors' group, the Union Nationale des Ecrivains de France. In a protest letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of the association, Arnaud-Aaron Upinsky, said the Koons sculptures would, "soil the most sacred of all symbols of our heritage and identity".

Why Versailles, built to show off the grandeur of a monarchy deposed more than 200 years ago, should be a "sacred" symbol of French identity is unclear. The Palace, visited by more than 4,700,000 people a year, is certainly a huge asset to the tourism industry. The Koons works will be exhibited on the normal tourist trail in the one quarter of the palace which is open to the public.

Other protests have concentrated on the alleged unsuitability of the venue – and oddities in Koons' private life, including his now-dissolved marriage to the Italian porn star turned politician Cicciolina.

M. Royère, president of the Fondation du Patrimoine heritage group, said: "I have nothing against contemporary art but I am shocked by this intrusion into a magical place like Versailles."

Didier Rykner, an influential art critic and journalist, said on his website "la Tribune de l'Art": "What resonance could Koons have with Versailles? I suppose one could imagine Cicciolina in the bed of Louis XIV."

Other protests have concentrated on personalities and conspiracy theories. It is pointed out that the president of the Versailles foundation, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, a former culture minister, was also once head of the M. Pinault's modern art collection in Venice, which includes a dozen works by Koons.

Is the Versailles exhibition intended to boost the European reputation – and therefore the market value – of Jeff Koons? Absurd, say defenders of the exhibition, including M. Aillagon. Koons is already, with Lucien Freud and Damien Hirst, among the most admired and expensive of living artists. The exhibition, they say, is a belated recognition by France of a modern master.

M. Aillagon said: "Even before they saw the exhibition, people were talking of an unacceptable sacrilege but why? Can ancient art only live with ancient art? The modern with the modern?

"Art exists to pose questions. Art is adventure, meetings, minglings, the challenging of certainties. I believe that Koons is a great artist and that will be recognised in time..."

What would Louis XVI, the last, doomed royal master of Versailles, have thought of giant metal lobsters and balloon dogs? He would probably have been fascinated. He was not very interested in ruling France but was fascinated by "progress".