Jeff Koons

Image courtesy of thebroad.org

By CALVIN CHEONG ‘20

The most important step a person can take is not necessarily the first step nor necessarily the last one. 

The most important step a person can take is always the next one.

Yes, and Jeff Koons—an artist/entrepreneur—seems to represent the obvious next step in the world of art. Take his esteemed Rabbit, for example: a three-foot-tall caricature of a rabbit. According to Christie’s Auction House, “this stainless-steel sculpture is at once cute and imposing, melding a Minimalist sheen with a cartoonish sense of play. It is crisp and cool in its appearance yet taps into the visual language of childhood; its lack of facial features renders it inscrutable, yet its form evokes fun and frivolity.” So innocent and benign! So nostalgic and wonderfully naïve! No wonder it sold for ninety-one-million dollars earlier last year: surely a paltry sum for such a philosophical paradigm of simplified profundity.

Just look at it! Christie’s has even more to say: among plethora other accomplishments, Rabbit “provides a dazzling update on Brancusi's perfect forms, even as it turns the hare into a space-invader of unknown origin” and, amazingly, embodies “whole ranges of references while at the same time remaining deadpan and aloof. We find ourselves filling its steely silence with thoughts of Disney, Playboy, childhood, Easter, Brancusi, Lewis Carroll, Frank Capra’s Harvey, Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, and Andy Warhol’s Cloud, without ever plumping for a single meaning.” 

Ha ha—what a load of poopy poop. The fact that someone might buy it (both literally and metaphorically) chills me to my rudimentarily artistic core. It would seem that although Jeff Koons, “one of the most important and valuable artists of his generation” according to Christie’s, inevitably represents the next step in art, he also happens to represent a step in the wrong direction. 

I know, I know: the beauty of art lies in its freedom, its interpretability, its caprice. Indeed, what I say in this article simply represents my own opinions, which stem from the way I (as an appreciator of aesthetic and effort) grew up to view art. As all conflicts and polarizations should go (in my opinion): if you agree with me, great! If you don’t agree with me… Great! And if you don’t care… that’s even better, I suppose. Either way, here’s my take on the modern artistic wonder that is Jeff Koons.

Just scrolling through the Sold Lots page on the Christie’s Auction House website, one can find the source of Koons’ extreme wealth (he has a net worth of $290 million, according to Mashtos). On the site, there is a picture of what looks like a pile of play-doh named Play-Doh—sold for twenty-two-million dollars. There, a basketball floating in a tank (One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank)—sold for fifteen-million dollars. There are dozens, hundreds of sold lots, each price more ridiculous than the last. And warning: Jeff Koons’ list of works are plagued with inappropriate pieces, with an entire series, Made in Heaven, dedicated to emulating Koons and his partner in a number of uncensored sexual positions. Although I don’t necessarily condemn nudist art, there is something conceited about auctioning one such piece, an especially explicit image named Red Butt (Close-Up), for half-a-million dollars (Widewalls.ch), simply relying on a farcical notion, that the piece’s very audacity is what vindicates it, to depict a straight-up pornographical image as a God-sent work of art. In my opinion, Koons takes advantage of this very notion for every single piece he has “created.”

 Why is “created” in quotes? Well, it’s because Koons doesn’t actually take part in the production of the pieces himself; instead, he employs other artists and art students to do the actual painting and sculpting. In a New York Times article, one of these “Studio Serfs” quotes Koons as referring to himself as “basically the idea person.” Koons’ “studio” is essentially a production line of meaningless, money-making commodities. So if you come across an impressive replication of the Mona Lisa (save for a blue, metal sphere protruding from the center of the painting) credited to one Jeff Koons, you’d better think twice. 

In my opinion, the modernized, capitalist corruption of artmaking that Koons embodies is why the art world is going downhill. People actively search for nuance—oftentimes where it doesn’t exist—in art pieces in favor of other, more admirable qualities. According to the Morningside Review, Jeff Koons himself “stresses that his work has no hidden meanings.” Yet his proponents and supporters seem to think otherwise, as evidenced by the descriptions by Christie’s Auction House; indeed, these “hidden meanings” seem to be the only thing separating Koons’ work from globally accepted kitsch. 

Between his ultimately nondescript, elementary pieces (and those that are extremely explicit), his open exploitation of others’ work to further his own ends, and his infusion of profit-hungry entrepreneurship into the art world, Jeff Koons, in my opinion, is a plague on everything that art should stand for. 

With bananas’ being taped to the walls and white canvases’ being sold for fifteen-million dollars, I don’t know how we can improve upon the situation, but I suppose that all I can do is hope.