I confess. I dismissed the whimsical work of Jeff Koons.
It was, in fact, only last year that I began to pay attention to what he has been doing all these years. Paying attention is getting to know is becoming familiar is one of the deepests acts of love.
I let Jeff Koons into my heart.
If I sound a bit evangelical it is to the point: Art Saves and Koons' art saved me—as was his intention all along.
I grew to appreciate him last year through a profile by Calvin Tompkins in the New Yorker. Tompkins reports that Koons speaks ingenuously about the spiritual intentions of his work, which of course is suprising given he (re)creates playthings. Koons said to Tompkins, "I wanted the piece to deal with the human condition, and this condition in relation to God. I wanted it to be a contemporary Sacred Heart of Jesus."
He was talking about Puppy though of course his Hanging Heart could easily fit that bill.
Puppy is a 40 foot tall wire-frame terrier filled with soil and blooming plants. It is a form upon which life blossoms so of course it is a sacred heart, eternal spring.
Puppy renders all who see it equal. —Jerry Saltz
Puppy or Balloon Dog (Blue) or red for that matter—Koons' sculptures are accessible and that isn't a bad thing.
I'm just as elitist as the next art-snob, and take my art seriously, and this is probably just the thing that has kept me from enjoying Koons' work. The loss has been mine.
Tompkins explained that Koons early on "recognized and embraced his own ignorance of art history." "I realized you don't have to know anything, Koons said, and I think my work always lets the viewer know that. I just try to do good work that makes people feel good about themselves, their history, and their potential."
You don't have to know anything—or—you don't have to know everything. Something Marie Louise von Franz said comes to mind: "I hope that we may get to the point where consciousness can function without the pretension of knowing everything and of having said the last word." This idea that one can have awareness—consciousness—without having it all figured out, without having the last word as though in an argument with the world, this has been very important to me. Feeling that I have to know everything before I can respond to things is self-limiting, but is also encouraged by others. Certainly the art world has this tendency to elitism, making art appreciation the special domain of those in-the-know. Von Franz added, "Knowledge is one of the greatest means of asserting power."
Koons addresses this by making his work approachable—thus the subject matter, the familiar and friendly, serves as affable welcome. With the same democratic, sociable attitude one appraises a flower, a sunset, a small dog, one—anyone— can then take in the work in its particular display. Koons' work breaks down my assumptions of what is appropriate or weighty. This is the elitist stuff I bring to the work. When I let this down—or when a different viewer drops his feeling of being intimidated by art—the work at hand can speak.
What speaks then is not mere whimsy, nor merely ironic inflation of mass-produced artifacts of popular, mass culture (read low-brow). Not merely. It is all that and an affectionate embrace of all that we collectively are—and all our inflatables: balloons, boats, basketballs, et cetera. The man knows a lot, of course.
"I just try to do good work that makes people feel good about themselves, their history, and their potential," he said. Feel good about the pop star who is a pop star because the masses (and masses everywhere) felt so good about him. Set him on a pedestal and consider that, that he is on a pedestal, pet chimpanze and all. St John the Baptist an icon as well, with baby pig. Same same. This is our history, and our potential—both to be the pop star and to be aware of how that works, how that comes about—the collective makes the individual a collective idol, or commodity—that too.
Hanging Heart, at the top of the post, was purchased last year at the highest price paid for a work of art by a living artist: $23.6 million. There isn't anything more idealized and desired in our culture than romantic love. The longing for it drives so much commerce—and I don't mean just on Valentine's Day, but every day in all ways from selling toiletries to the commerce of therapy for the lovelorn. How appropriate then that this token, not the sacred heart, but the ornamental heart, reach the pinacle of price.
Louis XIV is one of my favorite of Koons' sculptures and I saw it in LA at BCAM which shows a really fine selection of his work, probably the highlights of the Broad inaugural exhibition. This bust of the Sun King is made of stainless steel. (The man knows a thing or two about manufacturing too.) The 17th century world revolved around the Sun King, hence his title; Louis' world was gold—our stainless steel world is likewise not truly tarnishless, but classist, racist, sexist, divisive. Zhan Wang coats scholar rocks—objects of aesthetic, ascetic contemplation and emblems of Chinese traditional spirituality—with stainless steel, China's major commodity. He's on the same track as Koons was in 1986. Just how self-reflective can we be about this material? It is pervasive, the metal of the people, born of the industrial age. The factory, a collective mass enterprise, rolls out the metal of perfection: non-corrosive, stainless, shiny and strong, to be used in countless applications. Symbol of an age and the conundrum of an age. When steel is king and everyone has a stainless pot to piss in, what is the spiritual goal? Where is the alchemical gold?
My Koonsian answer would be the gold, the ultimate prize, is found in self-reflection. Witness his picture-perfect paintings of his own shiny, polished, reflective works set against shiny, reflective, refractive background. Are his works, these sculptures made of "high chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating" about "just the surface" of things, or is the virtue of a thing, anything, in its reflective surface? This is a self-reflecting universe after all. Here, on the transparent surface, we touch the depth and weight of his work. These painting are in a series called Celebration. Party hats, balloons, ribbons and bows, toys—celebration, yes that and a celebration of the world, an endlessly repeating, unfolding gift.
There's so much more to learn and love about this man's work. I haven't mentioned his mirrors, the collage-like paintings, Hulk Elvis and Monkey Train, or his embrace of sexuality, Made in Heaven. I'm so happy to have come out from under my rock and found him. I delight in his world. He's made it new, eternally new, like a new model vacuum cleaner, the New Deluxe Convertible perhaps! The piece pictured above is The New Hoover Celebrity III's, 2 vacuum cleaners, Plexiglas, flourescent lights from 1980. This from a series called The New, consumer items reborn each year encased in electrofied reliquaries. How we bow to the New—of course, it is in our very earthly nature (Spring), our emotional propensity (Hope), our religious heritage (Easter), our cultural tendency (Cutting Edge), why not in our consumption: Bigger! Better! Brand New!
Well, he's my New Favorite. Jeff Koons Takes the Cake!
Jeff Koons' website is the place to see more works online. In person, go to BCAM.
