Art Of The Day Weekly
#366 - from 27 November 2014 to 3 December 2014
Portrait of the artist in Koons
PARIS – Is Jeff Koons a genius of art who is opening new doors, wrapping up the conceptual approach, or a commercial gimmick, surfing on trends he keeps going thanks to the complicity of the major art galleries? These antagonistic positions should not evolve very much following this new mega-exhibition dedicated to Jeff Koons (the most important ever organized in Europe) as positions are so immovable. It is difficult in any case to define a single style between the golden mirrors, the porcelain busts, the vacuum cleaners in their plexiglass windows, the artificial inflatable animals (they are actually in metal) and snapshot of intercourse with Cicciolina, hidden in a room, from which under-age aesthetes are barred. Whatever our opinion of him may be, there exudes from this mixture a feeling of colourful energy, which is not reduced to kitsch and which we never know if it is serious or mockery, if it is the work of an iconoclast or an iconophile, the work of an artisan or an industrialist. In the end, Koons the chameleon, Koons the media manipulator, keeps all of his secrets and adapts to all interpretations. That is probably the key to his success.
• Jeff Koons at Centre Pompidou, from 26 November 2014 to 27 April 2015.