Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Jeff Koons
American; 20th-century, 21st-century
Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Stedelijk Museum
80%
Ushering in Banality. 1988. Painted wood
The sculpture overall is clearly banal, but then the title implies that the pig is a representation of banality, so that the piece becomes an allegory of itself, its superficial meanings and appearances feeding back and feeding back till any fixed perspective you might take on the thing becomes completely relativized and hollowed out. This hollowing is the artwork's "content" — it manages not just to exhibit banality but to aesthetically objectify it, to deliver it up to experience. Koons achieves this effect with remarkable acuity and variety of means: there's a deft Duchampianism at play, what with the hired craftsman's signature preserved on the base of the carving; despite its stupidity, the sculpture cultivates some "formal" intrigue, namely in the pig's ambivalently downcast head and its high-tone color scheme; it's nimbly aware of — but not beholden to — its institutional context, inhabiting a space between non-art and hyper-art which the museum steps in blithely to mediate. Would it be better art if all this were done in better faith? Probably. But man, this is postmodern art on all cylinders. (TFS, 2025)
Omaha, NE: Joslyn Art Museum
78%
Gazing Ball (Goya The Forge). 2015-2017. Oil on canvas, glass, and aluminum
Rather cheeky! Instead of looking at a painting by a master we are looking at a distorted vision of ourselves. What are we doing, really, by going to museums and looking at pictures? Things I’ve seen in the Joslyn: influencers getting ready for photo shoots, awkward guys trying to be serious and sincere in front of girls. Is the whole museum/highbrow-culture apparatus just a backdrop for our feigned and performative good taste? How good we look, imbibing Great Art! I also overheard a mother and child, after examining the ball, comment on how “cool” it looked... without even acknowledging the Goya. I tried as hard as I could to find out whether the Goya is a painted reproduction or a print; short of committing the cardinal sin and touching the surface of the work, I couldn’t do it. One interesting detail: the metal slab on which the gazing ball is placed is painted to match the colors on the canvas next to it. Koons is very discreetly and subtly holding up the mirror. (WC, 2025)