choosing pie culture, history, tecnology & stuff

There’s something about the perfection of Koons’ work that leaves me cold, there’s no human trace that exposes the author, denying all empathy. On approaching the Serpentine show I wasn’t expecting too much, but to my surprise I found myself enjoying what was on offer. The work as always is executed perfectly but the amount of labour used is obvious too, also there seems to be a deeper personal element evident.
The sculptures of beach toys encased in bins, chairs and wire mesh – beautifully rendered in painted aluminium – provide great metaphors with their relationships. It’s very difficult to fight the urge to touch them, the detail in moulding and paint is so convincing that you find yourself reaching out to squeeze them.
The large scale paintings are quite amazing. The techniques used manage to capture the peculiar quality that only computer-cut collage can create. With the combination of images from porn, adverts and children’s toys in the mix Koons once again implies the ‘equality’ of value given by society to the diverse issues within our culture. Morality has gone only product remains.
Jeff Koons ‘the artist’ has for a long time been an undecided phenomenon for me, I cannot decide if he is a shrewd commentator on contemporary society or just lucky. Is he aware of what his work implies about our society? When interviewed he portrays himself as a simple soul wishing happiness on the world – everything in Koons’ world is perfect down to his clean-cut American image.
The curator of the current show sounds like she’s bought into the artist’s image and describes his work in the usual way – exploring notions of consumerism, taste, banality, childhood and sexuality etc… I feel this misses the whole point of the work.
I think the main point of the artist’s work lies in the way he forces the viewer to question their entire value system. Why do we value one artwork above another? Why do we lust after the latest designs? Why do we value one creative process over another? Why do we hold an image created by a painter in higher regard than an image designed to sell a product? Our whole culture is based on a tier system of importance, with art at the top as high culture and all other creative endeavours placed in their appropriate positions below.
Can low art be high art only if created by an artist?
With Koons we are confronted with an artist who plays with these rules. He employs craftsmen who carve religious icons for a living and asks them to carve a large wooden bear – an enlarged copy of a cheap tourist souvenir. He purchases vacuum cleaners and displays them in their pristine condition in a glass case like a museum exhibit. He photographed himself with his wife performing a variety of sexual activities and displayed the images as happy family portraits, and had a children’s party balloon dog recreated in shiny aluminium. In each case we are confronted by culturally low or irrelevant items which the artist reproduces and exhibits to seamless perfection, posing the question – are we impressed by the craftsmanship or the idea?
An artist should express something about the human condition and be of their time – the great ones capture something that transcends time and speaks to every generation.
What we hold in high regard (the values we place on things) define our society. In a world dominated by the worship of celebrity, wealth, status and luxury products our value system has changed to praise the surface, the perfect in image – quality is what you see not what lies within. Koons’ work tackles this issue and for that reason I believe him to be one of the most relevant and important artists of our time.
Jeff Koons’ ‘Popeye’ series of works are currently on exhibition at the Serpentine gallery.