-
-
Ad Space
(728 x 90)
-
-
-
Ad Space
(120 x 240)
-
-
Art review
Jeff Koons
Museum of Contemporary Art, through Sept 21.
Jeff Koons, Woman in Tub, 1988.Jeff Koons’s disparate techniques, media and messages defy categorization and interpretation—a situation the artist-provocateur seems to cultivate. Is he Post-Pop? Conceptualist? Neo-Geo? This retrospective doesn’t answer any of these questions—and guest curator Francesco Bonami’s confusing catalog essay doesn’t help much—but the exhibition is a fun ride nevertheless.
Koons is not really an “artist” in the traditional sense of a person laboring alone in an atelier. His operation is more like a factory, with armies of fabricators executing his complicated, often outlandish ideas: life-size porcelain figurines like Michael Jackson and Bubbles (1988); metal works such as Rabbit (1986) that look like inflatable toys; or a classically inspired figurative marble sculpture of Koons himself. It’s hard to find a common thread between these glossy works and Koons’s 1980s “readymades” (basketballs suspended in aquariums, vacuum cleaners in Plexiglas cases) or his recent photorealist paintings.
The most dazzling aspect of the show is the MCA’s installation: Taking down almost all of the dividing walls in its ground-floor galleries—which yields 7,500 square feet of open space—maximizes the visceral impact of Koons’s candy-colored images and monumental objects. The eye-popping assemblage is substantially more than the sum of its parts.
Photo Gallery: See more art from Jeff Koons, in this image gallery. Warning, some images are not safe for work.
Time Out Chicago / Issue 173 : Jun 19–25, 2008
Leave a comment
-
-
- Subscribe now and save 87%!
- For just $19.99 a year, you'll get hundreds of listings and free events each week, plus our special issues and guides, including Cheap Eats, Great Spas, Fall Preview, Holiday Gift Guide and more!
-
- Time Out Chicago respects your privacy. We will only use your e-mail address in order to contact you regarding to your subscription and to send you our weekly e-newsletter. We will not share this information with anyone.
-
-
Ad Space
(320 x 53)
Ad Space
(300 x 250)
-
Reviews and features
Ongoing exhibitions and more
Time Out Chicago Kids
-
-
Find things to do with the young ones and much more in our newest publication Time Out Chicago Kids. Available at Borders and Barnes & Noble locations.
-
-
Most viewed in Art & Design
-
Ad Space
(160 x 600)
Ad Space
(160 x 600)
-
- Visit our sister sites:
- Time Out Chicago Kids
- Time Out New York
- Time Out New York Kids
- Time Out London
- Time Out Worldwide
at the work without looking at yourself. Walking through the exhibit, you question that morning’s choice of clothing. But the real power of Koons comes when I looked up at the hanging blue heart. It’s shiny and vast, and even the ribbon has those little stripes that would make it curly if you dragged a scissor blade over it. It’s so unfair we can’t touch it. In the reflection, I’m lightly blue and stretched to my ideal weight. Even I get to be a little less flawed in the reflection of Koons.
But in general, seeing the pieces in real life adds little, as there isn’t a lot of subtlety to the pieces to begin with. Yes, the details are spot on -- the printing mistakes and the creases that happen in an actual inflatable lobster are the same as on the steel sculpture. But I could experience those details with any number of my children’s toys. And seeing the “paintings” only made them look worse than in books. The colors really are that painful. With Koon’s work, you can’t look (con't)
Jeff Koons said that what advertising was to Warhol, he was to branding. When I see Hoover vacuum cleaners, I think of Koons, basketballs, Koons, dimestore inflatables, Koons. He’s really won that war. The question for me was how it would translate into real life after everything I’ve read about this artist. Koons’ sculptures translates well as photographs. Seeing the balloon dog in person only give an added sense of grandeur and some further admiration for it’s very near flawlessness. (cont)