Radial champs 2003 is an edition produced by Jeff Koons as a tribute to Mohammed Ali, accompanying a deluxe, limited-edition book published by Taschen, celebrating Ali's life and career. Koons’s collaboration with Taschen points to his fascination with Ali, an icon of the twentieth century whose influence continues to be apparent not only in the sporting arena but also in other areas of popular culture, such as rap music. As with earlier works, Koons’s sculpture re-contextualises mass-produced objects in a playful arrangement that, according to the artist, aims not to alter their character but to enhance their specific personality traits.

Perhaps the most significant strand of Koons’s practice has been his continued experimentation with the tradition of the ‘readymade’ — a term first used by Marcel Duchamp in 1915 to refer to his ‘found-object’ art works. The readymade is one of the most significant developments in twentieth-century Western art. Koons appears to refer to this legacy in his use of a wooden stool as the stand for this sculpture: Duchamp’s first readymade work, Bicycle wheel 1913, similarly used a plain wooden stool as a plinth as well as an integral element of the artwork.