Jeff Koons: A Retrospective

Who? In November 1976, having studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Maryland Institute College of Art, Jeff Koons hitched a ride to New York City. Thirty-seven years later, his sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange) became the most expensive work by a living artist to be sold at auction, going for the staggering sum of $58.4 million. Both derided and lauded as an artist quintessentially of his time, Koons has been pronounced to be the definitive artist of the past three decades, his varied practice exploring the culture and objects that make up our lives.

What? The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is currently hosting a Jeff Koons retrospective, displaying work from across his entire career. It is the most space the museum has ever devoted to a single artist’s work, demonstrating Koons’ unique position in the art firmament, a lot of renown for an artist whose fixations are seemingly at odds with the 'serious' artist’s obsession with the everyday. In an early collection titled Equilibrium, Koons encased a basketball in a glass box so that it floated miraculously as if suspended in space, crystallising its perfect newness as a consumer product. His sculptures took on greater scope and size in the Celebration collection, which featured an oversized Balloon Dog in five differently coloured iterations.

Why? Koons' relentless attention to detail and perfectionism is infamous, and it imbues his art with a powerful energy. He has spent over two decades on his most recent work, Play-Doh, perfecting it with over 120 assistants. Furthermore, his personal life is inseparable from his craft. In Made in Heaven, Koons collaborated with his future wife, the Italian porn star Ilona Cicciolina, to create a series of images and sculptures of the two in erotic poses and sex acts. The images become a vulnerable instance of self-portraiture, capturing in Koons’ own life the enactment of a media idealised conception of love that cannot possibly be sustained, a fact which was perpetuated by the reality of the couple’s failed marriage.

Koons is an artist who is unashamedly fascinated by the banal and the everyday. His work eschews lofty idols, embracing instead elements of culture that the “artist” might be expected to despise. It is this continual investigation into the most human and modern parts of our lives that holds our interest, and make his work continually interesting and provocative.

Jeff Koons: A Retrospective is at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art untll October 27.

Text by Thomas Rooney