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the art collectors » Jeff Koons Keeps Criticism Alive with Serpentine Survey

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Jeff Koons Keeps Criticism Alive with Serpentine Survey

jeff-koons-serpentine-popeye
Jeff Koons with Triple Popeye, 2008. Image: Getty Images via Telegraph

There has been plenty written lately on the turbulence of the art market. Major auctioneers are noticiably scaling back on guarantees and offerings from contemporary art titans like Hirst or Murakami, whose seemingly unstoppable growth finally appears to be tapering off. Even Jeff Koons, whose rise to fame predates both of the above mentioned artists by more than a decade, has been affected by the market slump. In April, 2009 the NY Times reported that one of Koons’ five Hanging Heart sculptures was quietly sold for $11 million in a private sale. This was little more than a year after he set the world record for a living artist when Gagosian Gallery bought another color from the same series for $23.6 million during Sotheby’s November 2007 contemporary evening sale (view auction result here).

In the midst of all this pop art-star uncertainty, Serpentine Gallery is hosting Jeff Koons’ first public (nothing’s for sale) gallery exhibition in London. Jeff Koons: Popeye Series presents a survey of works conceptualized by Koons and painstakingly executed by the employees of his some 100 person NY studio team.  The focal point of the show are Triple Popeye (2008) and other recent paintings infusing iconic cartoon characters in a hyper dense mash-up of abstracted imagery generated with computer aid, but meticulously painted by hand (not Koons’ own). Also on view are the artist’s well-know cast aluminum “inflatables” sculptures that take on the appearance of cheap mass-produced plastic pool toys. These have been updated and combined with “readymades” – that’s Koons-speak for every-day household items like a stepladder and garbage can.

For more than twenty years, Jeff Koons has been the subject of much praise and ridicule.  His ultra-modern style of pop has been simultaneously applauded as some of the most culturally relevant  and revolutionary art being made today, and attacked for being intellectually void, utterly low-brow kitsch that epitomizes the speculative glitz of the last several years. This new show is no different. Writing for the Telegraph, Richard Dorment suggests that “Koons’s subject matter may appear to be innocuous, but he is the most subversive artist alive today.” Adhering to the more cynical view, is the Guardian’s Adrian Searle, who says Popeye Series “is art for a world with deep pockets and a short attention span.”


Via Channel 4

Taking the middle ground is art critic Michael Glover, who calls the show “a mind-numbing spectacle…quite difficult to know whether to laugh or to cry at,” and that “it seems preposterous, almost beyond the most absurd critical joke, that anyone should take this stuff seriously at all, or have the gall to stick the label of art on it.” Yet, In the same breath he ponders the notion that “Koons wants to get rid of all that kind of old-fashioned guilt by making an art that is readily approachable, understandable and enjoyable. He wants to be entirely non-judgmental. He doesn’t want people to have to feel that they are nervously looking up at something that they don’t quite understand. He doesn’t want people to have to think and worry about pesky things like meaning. What you see is what you get. Koons brings us all together, in one big happy family. He makes us feel good about ourselves in the presence of art.”

Should Jeff Koons be heralded for democratizing art for the masses, or chastised for ushering in an over-inflated balloon of meaningless and shallow art? Koons himself might agree with both sides of the critical spectrum, and has said his art should readily evoke immediate reaction and not be contemplated or deconstructed for deeper meaning. Talking with Glover, Koons reflected on his own works: “They don’t have to bring anything with them other than exactly what they are, and they’re perfect for that experience because it’s about them…I want people, when they look at my art, to have engaging moments. I want them to feel that everything about their lives is perfect – their history, their culture, their selves. Everything is in play. Everything is possible…”

Jeff Koons: Popeye Series
July 2 – September 13
Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA

Lead Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images via Telegraph. Triple Popeye painting with Acrobat (Lobster): Ray Tang/Rex Features. All other images: Serpentine Gallery/Jeff Koons.

Posted by ATARMS | Filed in Artist Talk, Europe, Exhibition, London, Market Talk, Uncategorized


2 Responses to “Jeff Koons Keeps Criticism Alive with Serpentine Survey”

  1. July 8th, 2009 at 4:19 am

    London Buses route 468 » Blog Archive » Filmmaking said:

    […] the art collectors » Jeff Koons Keep Criticism Alive with … […]

  2. July 9th, 2009 at 8:43 pm

    thangdynasty said:

    Just a thought: the fact that Koons “wills” his works to NOT embody any meaning, is itself, the meaning isn’t it? 🙂



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