Synopses & Reviews
Jeff Koons' spectacular October 2008 exhibition at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie presented the infamous series of sculptures and paintings known collectively as Celebration, a project whose fabrication has involved so much labor (both manual and computer-aided) that Koons seemed to almost vanish from the art world radar in the 1990s, when he first undertook the series. At present, Celebration's best-known work may be the 10-foot-tall, stainless-steel Balloon Dog, typical of the outsize scale and remarkably clean sheen of Koons' sculptures, in which the sensory joys of childhood object relations are revisited and espoused. Such works wear their playroom origins on their sleeves, but their gargantuan proportions, with their attendant sense of menace, establish them firmly in the adult world as infant objects retrieved and rebuilt with adult strength. The work tries to gain support from the confidence of the gesture, Koons says, to be kind of in the moment, and to have confidence within the self. Inasmuch as such observations could be true of much art, Koons is unusually open about what drives his work, all the while preserving its self-sufficiency as art. This monograph documents these mammoth installations in the Neue Nationalgalerie's Upper Hall, an exhibition that without doubt constitutes a milestone in the artist's career.
Synopsis
Text by Anette Husch, Peter-Klaus Schuster.
Synopsis
Jeff Koons' newest paintings combine high pixelation of sexual imagery with gestural paint splashes, in an erotic rampage that bursts off the canvas, energized by a friction between photography, painting and digital media. In part an homage to Courbet's Origin of theWorld, these works argue for the flourishing of libido and aim to make a direct hit upon their viewer: My work will use everything that it can to communicate. It will use any trick, I'll do anything- absolutely anything-to communicate and to win the viewer over, says the artist. Offsetting this quasi-religious solicitousness is Koons' usual great degree of care in the layering of images, and the pixelated imagery that compels the viewer to stand back some way to process it. (For Koons, pixelation too is a sign of authenticity.) This beautifully produced edition presents five of these new paintings printed on tipped-in color plates.