Wow, Jeff Koons!
Jeff Koons, detail from Sacred Heart (Blue/Magenta), 1994-2007, Gagosian Beverly Hills
Looking at the rolled stainless steel perfection of the Celebration series (Balloon Dog, Rabbit and Flowers), people forget how this material can be incredibly difficult to work with on a monumental scale. These pieces are strikingly bold and visually fun. But are they really?
Jeff Koons, Sacred Heart (Blue/Magenta), 1994-2007, Gagosian Beverly Hills
I am usually left with a big question mark after viewing Koons works, as if the structural hollowness of these works verged on emptiness.
Is there any meaning beneath the aesthetic kick? I so wish it could pop and reveal something! Anything!
You could say I set myself for a tough contrast during a recent trip to Los Angeles, but I recommend viewing two exhibitions which actually deal with similar themes and are the subjects of my posts this week and next:
- Jeff Koons at Gagosian Beverly Hills and
- Lauren Greenfield’ Generation Wealth at the Annenberg Space for Photography.
One shocked me, challenged me and made me think about past, present and future. The other was just, quite literally, full of air…Trust me, I really tried finding some meaning in the use of readymades by Jeff Koons. So here it goes…
The term “readymade” comes from Marcel Duchamp taking a mass-produced object (a urinal), signing it and calling it art because he had the idea to do so.
Evidently the art world was shocked. So avant-garde! But you have to give it to Duchamp: the date was 1917 (yes, 100 years ago!).
In his Antiquity series, Jeff Koons takes copies of Old Masters paintings such as Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’Herbe and Titian’s Pastoral Concert.
Jeff Koons, various Gazing Balls
Then he adds one of his Gazing Ball in a slightly lowered centre position, a beautiful, almost hypnotic, blue orb made of sleek stainless steel.
Detail from Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball (Mailboxes), 2013, Gagosian Beverly Hills
Jeff Koons talks about how he loved the gazing balls of his late 1950-60’s childhood Pennsylvania, how they shined, reflected and “gave back to the world”.
Except his slightly creepy “new age guru voice” does not help endearing these to me.
Hearing French-speaking (!) gallery goers asking “Is this the original?” when facing Koons’ Gazing Ball (Géricault Radeau de la Méduse) is admittedly something that raised…how shall I put it?…questions?!!! Concern? Outrage? Can’t you see the blue ball? In what world would it be OK to use the original Radeau de la Méduse? Maybe in a world where respect in all shape or form has gone by the window…
Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball (Géricault Radeau de la Méduse), Gagosian Beverly Hills
I needed to find answers: what’s in these Antiquity pieces?
- Is Koons adding his signature colorful stainless steel as a way to say he is now part of this lineage of artists?
- Is this all it takes to make it the art for our time? And if yes, then I am not sure it’s complimentary for us…
- Koons never denied how Pop Art influenced his art but where Warhol used Campbells soup cans, Koons uses reproductions of masterpieces. Is Koons saying that Old Masters works are now readymades?
Look at what the gazing ball does when you look at these works…I am going to leave aside the possible narcissistic element I have discussed in another post (Kusama and mirrors). The intense dark blue of the gazing balls pretty much nullifies the vision of yourself.
The ball draws your gaze like a magnet. You register the Old Masters image because it’s part of our popular culture but Koons does not really make you look intently at it. You look at the exact same place in each of these works: lower centre. That precludes looking at most of the painting…which is a non-work anyway because it’s a copy!!
Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball (Manet Déjeuner sur l’Herbe), 2014-15, Gagosian Beverly Hills
Is the message about our relationship with works of art?? Don’t look at those cheap reproductions we are bombarded with? Don’t reflect on the meanings of a pale imitation of an Old Masters work?
Fine, I actually think this is a valid commentary but Koons’ blue orb reflects the space and world around and puts the viewer in the middle of these cheap reproductions!
If you’re still following me, it egotistically puts our world going mad in the middle of a cheap image of our revered cultural heritage.
I can’t help but feeling stuck in a conundrum here. It simply does not feel good. Or perhaps Koons is VERY good as truly the art and artist that our time deserves[1].
From paintings, let’s move on to sculptures. The original Farnese Hercules would have been a classical Greek statue from 4th century BCE. The one we can admire in Naples is a Roman copy from 216AD. Standard practice. Rare are the classical Greek statues that made it to us.
Koons’ Farnese Hercules is a plaster copy based on a copy of the Roman version.
Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball (Farnese Hercules) with Seated Ballerina in background, Gagosian Beverly Hills
Same process with Balloon Rabbit, based on a plastic balloon version which was then massively scaled up and cast in stainless steel.
Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball (Apollo Lykeios), 2013 with Balloon Rabbit (Magenta), 2005-2010 in background, Gagosian Beverly Hills
So many degrees of separation yet it looks vividly the same. Where Rabbit may be clever and fun, the Antiquity series touches on appropriation art, turning classical art into a product, a commodity…signed with a blue gazing ball.
Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball (Barberini Faun), 2013, Gagosian Beverly Hills
Turning ancient statues and Old Masters paintings into commodities bring consumerism as a recurrent theme for Koons. Charged with both attraction and repulsion, this underlying message in the giant disposable “blown-up souvenirs[2]” fuels this love / hate relationship that people have towards his art.
But see, I am not shy to say I am a shopper, a consumer and I like it. So technically, I should quite like the art of Koons.
It’s his creepy dark side that bothers me. It’s the way Koons can commoditize himself and his then porn-star wife Cicciolina in his Made in Heaven works and sell it as expensive art – I will let you Google these works when the kids are not around.
It’s deciding that art is showing Cicciolina’s anus on a big scale while married and then using that “visual” again in the Balloon series when fighting a custody battle (check the heart of each Flowers and the twists of each Balloon sculptures).
Details from Jeff Koons, Balloon Rabbit (Magenta), Gagosian Beverly Hills
As art historian Hal Foster says in the Koons BBC Imagine documentary: “Koons is good at being weird”. I have to give it to him, even though I don’t have to like it.
Lastly what to make of the Ballerinas??
Jeff Koons, Ballerinas, 2010-14, Gagosian Beverly Hills
Forgive me for speaking bluntly but here I see Lladró porcelain on steroids.
Jeff Koons, Seated Ballerina, Gagosian Beverly Hills
Or here, is it a Venus for our time? A stainless steel Disney Cinderella trying to reenact Rodin’s Thinker with a dose of Degas’ dancers?
You may have seen an even bigger version of Seated Ballerina as a giant inflatable at Rockefeller Centre.
Ballerinas look like mercurial Venuses, reflecting in the same way the Los Angeles glass skyscrapers do in heat of the day. But like mercury, it’s the constant shifts leading nowhere which trouble me in sculptures that little girls are bound to wow…
So much kitsch is bound to disintegrate from the inside but wait, no, Ballerinas are safe. They are hollow.
Their incredibly high facture makes you ponder: so much perfectionism and yet all you get are reflections of questionable taste.
And super-sized at that…Meant to attract insatiable eyes and bottomless purses as “Art for the 1%”.
This is the same 1% Lauren Greenfield studied and strikingly photographed throughout her career and which you can see in Generation Wealth, subject of next week’s post.
Going from air to substance, asking many questions along the way, that’s the beauty of art!
As you’ve probably noticed, I am really looking for answers, so please drop your thoughts in the Comment box. Tell me why you like or dislike the art of Jeff Koons. If you don’t know yet, you can experience it at Gagosian Beverly Hills until August 18, 2017.
Bibliography
[1] Selling Points by Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 7/7/2014
[2] Hal Foster in BBC Documentary, Summer 2015: Koons: Diary of a Seducer
http://www.arthistory.today/state-of-the-arts-blog/jeff-koons
Jed Perl, “The Cult of Jeff Koons,” The New York Review of Books
© 2017 Ingrid Westlake
All pictures by Ingrid Westlake, unless otherwise stated.
Hi Ingrid
I find his art to be like gazing at a store full of “Cotton candy”full of color and at times tempting but in the end, disappointing to buy😏
Have a great race this weekend and remember to take one hill at a time
Cheers
Brenda
Hi Brenda, I agree, it’s a fine line between attraction and repulsion. I have really tried to dig and research but it’s hard not to come out empty…
Thank you so much for remembering how “special” this weekend is for me! I am absolutely terrified but one hill at a time, one foot in front of the other until it stops 😂
All the best, Ingrid
Love your article.
I do not like his “art” even thought the balloons are fun and now a mass production piece you can find at any home…
I think that when he did those works, each was meant to shock. “How dare you make fun of such amazing master pieces? ” Maybe the “querelle des anciens et des modernes”. I don’t know but that is what I feel.
Maybe one of your next articles can be about Orlan which “art” concept I understand but cannot consider as art either….
Keep on!!!
Thank you, Virginie! I like your comment about the “querelle des anciens et des modernes”! And shock factor is definitely at the crux of Koons work but this brings the question “is that really what art is all about?”…Is shock the defining factor to get onto the radar and becoming recognized as an artist? This would again be s poor reflection on the state of our world? Definitely another subject for debate to add to the endless list to which I am more than happy to add Orlan as well 😉 I just wish there was an exhibition / performance I could go see…Let me know if you hear about anything; there was The Venice Biennale recently but oh too far…Thank you for reading as ever 😘
I have to agrée with you Ingrid, i dont see the point of his work either. Thanks for yet again a great article! And we will be thinking of you tomorrow xx
Thank you and thank you, Marlene! And if anybody is out there reading this and loving the art of Koons, I want to hear it too 😉
The bright and smooth side of the colored metal at the huge scale is typical of Koon’s My eyes can be attracted by the pink rabbit.Not the others…
Colors, shine and size definitely make a big impact, that’s for sure😉
It is very interesting that you write about him. I appreciate the quality of his work and I think this and a very good marketing has made him so big as a “contemporary artist”.
I’ve been a fan of Duchamp for a long time and his “readymades” I believe were only a part of his work, an important part of his development as an artist. Many have tried to be so “spontaneous” as he was but very few have accomplished something as big as what he did.
We still have to see where he goes from here.
Now I want to go have coffee and talk with you 😉
Sibila, I could not agree with you more on the influence of Duchamp on the art world. He was the one who came up with a radically new idea that would shake the art world and open the roads to Conceptual Art.
That’s why for all his visual impact, Koons really has not come up with anything new but there is this very annoying feeling that he’s riding a wagon of stainless steel that’s already travelled…yet, he is making a huge amount of money where artists with more merits and ideas did not.
I will be spending more time in your neighborhood the last week of June so let’s grab that coffee for sure!
“Koons is good at being weird” is a fair comment.
But I do enjoy the whimsy of the gazing ball works.
Thank you, Bill. I am so glad for your comment that you enjoy the Gazing Balls. I know I don’t but we have the right to disagree. One thing is sure I keep thinking about them and Koons. Weird, wouldn’t you say? 😉 Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment.
[…] I keep thinking about Koons since last week’s blog…which might be a hopeful sign that there is more than meet the […]
Hello Ingrid, I consider that the balloon rabbit, the sacred heart, the ballerina, are works of art ! I like to look at the ballerina, very realistic, a lot of charm : it’s a marvel ! In a very rigid material and certainly difficult to handle Koons arrives to define the smallest detail. It’s already a feat !!
It reminds me of balloons of “baudruches” !!
I read a document about the balloon swan yellow , I love this work !
On the other hand the addition of blue ball on the painting question me !!! I feel like watching only the gazing ball !!! To the detriment of the picture ! Is it wanted by Koons ? Is this fact to shock ?? There is surely a will to make us react !!
I share your views on the Antiquity series where Koons uses copies of Old Masters paintings and adds a blue gazing ball. Shock must be an important driver for Koons because it seems to sell. I agree, I still can’t find any point of these types of works 😉 I am waiting to hear if anybody does…
[…] of the doubt, do some research to form an educated opinion. Since I have done it for Jeff Koons here, I went to look at Damien Hirst’s Veil […]