As the Whitney Museum closes its Madison Avenue doors and moves downtown, it ends with Jeff Koons. How appropriate, as the contemporary artist attempts to herald in the end of art.
Koons, in his kitsch engagement with the readymade, conflates skill with substance as is apparent in his highly technically skilled works. But while he evokes countless art references in an attempt to write himself into the artistic tradition, it comes off as shiny but hollow—the trademark features of all of his work. However, he remains one of the most successful contemporary artists and his stuff is incredibly sought after. Koons is arguably the most famous artist of this generation; his works are known well outside the confines of the art world.
The exhibition is quite large and takes up almost the entirety of the museum. It is divided on three floors of the Whitney, moving chronologically from the second to the third and then the fourth. Each room contains works from specific series that Koons did over the years on all sorts of subjects and in all different media, from “The New,” with its glass enclosed vacuum cleaners, “Banality,” which contains large versions of porcelain statues, and “Celebration” which includes his most famous works such as “Balloon Dog” and “Hanging Heart”.
The works in the exhibit, while varied in technical skill and makeup, are recognizably that of one artist. Koons returns to two major themes in his work, mirrors and hollowness. Many of his pieces are made out of metal and are polished in a way that one can see their reflection. This is depicted in “Rabbit, and the “Antiquity” series among others. The shiny surfaces of his sculptures are identifiable as Koons pieces around the world. Featured items at the Whitney exhibit from Koons’ first solo exhibition, called Equilibrium, serve to demonstrate this; a scuba tank and life raft that are both completely hollow. Each appears to be a lifesaving device. Instead, their bronze makeup will not save but instead will kill their user.
These trademarks beg an engaging question for the exhibit’s viewer. Does Koons’ art, which is engaged in the shallow and superficial, reflect our own relationship with art?
Koons’ work holds up a mirror to us as we are forced to engage this question. The idea of the mirror in Koons’ work, however, goes beyond the physical depiction. He places a mirror up to society, demonstrates what he sees in an incredibly technically skilled way, and presents his new reading of contemporary culture to us. People react quite strongly against Koons, but one could say they are responding to the horror of seeing their own hypocrisies bared up in front of them.
In his “Banality” series, Koons created porcelains of all sorts of figures including John the Baptist, Michael Jackson and Bubbles and Amore, a teddy bear. People responded negatively to seeing John the Baptist beside Jackson and seeing Jackson in this way. However, one could say Koons was showing the public that they truly equated these two, and placing them together was showing the truth of how society truly sees religion and celebrity.
The hollowness plays into this as well. With his emphasis on things empty on the inside, Koons is demonstrating the hollowness of contemporary culture. In his “Inflatables” series, he blows up flowers and rabbits. The blowups are filled with just air, nothing within them. He again returns to inflatables in his “Celebration” series, demonstrating that it is a common theme in his work.
Though there is a way to understand Koons in the perspective of a social commentator, the exhibit overall doesn’t depict that level of depth to its full possible extent. The walls are stark white and the division of the gallery space into small rooms and floors does not allow its viewer to truly grasp an integrated view of Jeff Koons. By the time the end is in sight, the first few rooms are already fading from memory. The rooms all resemble each other, after all, and there are a lot of works to see.
Additionally, Koons himself does not truly develop an independent identity throughout the exhibition; he lacks a voice. As he strives to take his place in the legacy of art, the predecessors who he evokes with artistic references overshadow him. He pays homage to Duchamp with his ready-mades, Flavin with the lighting underneath them, Judd with the minimalist containers for them, Oldenberg with his inflatables, Warhol with his use of pop culture, and Lichtenstein with his Popeye. His later works from the “Antiquity” series seem to be a pandering to the classical history of art, as he tries to redo the classics in his own technical way. His uses of these influences can be interesting, but it makes him an aggregator of culture, not a cultural voice.
While waiting on line to see the exhibit for the second time, I was shocked to see how the line remained long well into the show’s third month. Koons, with his technical skill and theatrical pieces, continues to inspire an audience and attract a crowd. But it’s like that lifeboat. It may be detailed, but it’s hollow on the inside. If one is looking for the true history of modern art, travel to the fifth floor of the Whitney instead, with its permanent collection of Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and others.
Jeff Koons: A Retrospective will be at The Whitney Museum of American Art until October 19, 2014.