"On one level Koons's humor is pleasurably sophomoric. His mating of Jayne Mansfield and the eponymous cartoon character in Pink Panther is a thoroughly enjoyable send-up of heterosexual rapture and celebrity romance.This series with its focus on object-lust and needy sentimentality, shifted the progression into a darker key, even as the things Koons was fabricating to represent his evolving program were becoming bigger, brighter, and more alarmingly cheerful.
Ephemeral reality scares Koons, so he makes indestructible totems to things that never lived and so cannot perish. His big yes to excess is a big no to irrepressible guilt. Despite all his put-ons and superficial cynicism, Koons is at bottom a deadly serious artist, a pivotal figure of his increasingly pessimistic generation."
-A quote from the MoMA Curator
Koons is able to merge two problem areas of America's culture into one: lust/desire/want and commercialism/materialism--all while making us giggle, tilt our heads in wonder, and think him a tad bit crazy.
No comments:
Post a Comment