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Catch kitschy and kinky art at Jeff Koons’ new retrospective

He’s given us “Balloon Dog,” “Puppy” and life-size images of his own naked self. In return, Jeff Koons has received plenty — about $100 million, making him the best-paid artist around.

But he’s never gotten a retrospective until now.

An unidentified man takes a selfie with “Play-Doh.”Tamara Beckwith

For its last big show before moving downtown, the Whitney’s going out with a splash. “Jeff Koons: A Retrospective,” through Oct. 19, spills onto five floors and a courtyard, more space than the Whitney’s given anyone, even its beloved Edward Hopper.

Then again, Hopper never posed nude for Vanity Fair. Nor did he license his “Nighthawks” for handbags, the way Koons signed with H&M for “Balloon Dog” purses (on sale July 17).

Say what you will about the 59-year-old’s patented blend of pop, consumerism and eroticism — and art critics have said plenty! — Koons was made for the Instagram age.

Or maybe it’s made him. So many people posed for selfies at this week’s previews that guards stepped between them and that massive mound of re-created Play-Doh, the giant stainless-steel heart and the life-size sculpture of Michael Jackson and Bubbles.

Just about every Koons work you know is here, along with some early stuff you may have missed — like the vacuum cleaners he enshrined in acrylic cases, inspired, the museum text tells us, by the Hoover salesmen who once went door-to-door. Salvation through suction?

At times, the explanatory text seems breathlessly overthe- top. The blurb beside “Sponge Shelf” reads, “Apart from their tactile surfaces and bright colors, Koons found a deeper message running through these objects — one that spoke to nothing less than mortality.”

“Cabbage Patch Kid.”Tamara Beckwith

We’re talking about a shelf of sponges, people.

And yet there are glimmers of mortality in Koons’ leaden-looking lifeboat, a suggestion of the womb in “Equilibrium,” in which a basketball sits suspended in a tank of distilled water. To make it, Koons consulted the late Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman.

But much of what looks simple is not. That giant violet steel heart dangling down a gold “ribbon” took nearly a decade of engineering to create. And those sculptures in the courtyard — one of which has Popeye clutching a pot of live begonias — shine as if they’re covered in black latex. They’re actually granite.

Koons’ most infamous works are on the third floor, where Michael Jackson, the Pink Panther and Buster Keaton stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a parade of the banal. That’s just a gallery and parental warning away from the “Made in Heaven” series — life-size laser-ink prints starring the artist with his ex, one-time porn star and Italian member of parliament Ilona Staller. In 1991’s “Silver Shoes,” they’re locked in a naked embrace — an image that’s tame compared with the ones around the corner.

From there, it’s almost a relief to reach the fourth floor. Here, under the umbrella title “Celebration,” are works by a man who, a second marriage and six children later, embraces the playful — inflatable pool toys, giant Play-Doh and all.

So take out your camera — you can’t look away. What artist could ask for more?