Jeff Koons, from Commentator to Commented On

    This is not the topic I had planned for this month, but a recent experience in New York City resulted in a change of topic.

    Last weekend I found myself in the city for the first time in several years. I immersed myself in art. From the classic works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to an intimate  gallery show in Chelsea, I saw some wonderful art. My primary reason for the trip, however, was professional: I was fortunate enough to be showing my own work at the Affordable Art Fair. With ninety galleries representing hundreds of perspectives, this fair offered a vibrant cross section of contemporary art.

    As I moved through the fair, one body of work caught my eye. I was not personally drawn to it, yet it planted itself in the back of my mind. I cannot recall the gallery or even tell you the artist’s name, but its theme, irony, stayed with me.

An Era of Sincere Irony

    Irony was an underlying current of the 1980s. As someone who came of age in this era, I remember its unique friction. It was a time of neon optimism and relentless consumerism. It was an era of “big,” big hair, big jewellery, and big aspirations, juxtaposed against the grim realities of the Cold War and the burgeoning AIDS crisis.

    As teenagers in our suburban bubble, we navigated these tensions with a curious detachment. We believed we could bounce through life in Calvin Klein jeans to a sound track by the B-52s, or Talking Heads, and everything would somehow untangle by the credits. Like the John Hughes movies that defined our suburban world, we believed that a bit of grit and our desire could paper over any rising social insecurity. We understood the irony of our “carefree” lives, but we leaned into the allure of the facade.

A “Formula” for Success

    At the fair I saw several riffs on art created during the 1980s. One series, in particular, caught my eye: a series of  “how-to manuals” scrawled on an enlarged lined paper surface suggesting that successful art is merely the result of a formula. One illustration read, “If all else fails, make a giant toy,” accompanied by an image of Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog.

    This critique feels timely, yet it misses the mark on why Koons’s work actually functions. Last month I did not delve into the concepts of his work (link here), but it’s worth noting that Koons emerged in the 1980s, not as a toy maker, but as a commentator on America’s consumer culture. In his series, New Hoover Convertibles, he placed vacuum cleaners inside plexiglass cases. In doing so, Koons deftly altered the vacuum cleaners’ status from product to object of culture. Whether or not these objects are art is immaterial.

I think it is fair to say that vacuum cleaners are not considered to be fine art. I’m not even sure if the vacuum cleaner itself is important; it may be the ability of  advertising to create status and desire that is on display in those cases. In an ironic twist, a mundane cleaning product moves from an advertisement to the status of art. Actually, not unlike Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes from the 1960s, which Warhol did actually make. In this Koons echoed Warhol’s examination of advertising’s power in post war America.

The Weight of Light

    While Balloon Dog was not created until 1994, it is a great eaxmple of Koons’s play with irony. He took a simple, ephemeral, and inexpensive child’s party toy and exploded it into a massive, hard, and incredibly expensive sculpture. Larger and more permanent than any party clown’s favor, the sculpture also wrangled with the idea of what can be art. 

    Balloon Dog may have been inspired by a lowly object, but its scale and high shine mesmerized viewers. Its brilliance lies in the physical challenge it presents to the viewer: you must hold two contradictory ideas in your mind simultaneously. Balloon Dog is a familiar toy, but it is made of several tons of colorful highly polished steel. Only the bulbous shaped body parts and the tell tale knotted nose remind viewers that this is “simply” a balloon animal, a small child’s party favor meant to bring joy. You see a kitschy object, but you stand before a surface so highly polished that it mirrors your surroundings back at you, demanding the same reverence we give to a classic monument.

The Ultimate Irony: Koons Endures

        The  “How-to Manual’s” artist at the fair clearly saw Koons as a symbol of Art World pretentiousness, a man who uses a “formula” rather than artistic skill to achieve fame and fortune. This is the ultimate irony: Koons, once the commentator, has now become the subject of commentary. To this artist, he is no longer a purveyor of concepts; he is simply an icon of the market place.

   However,  the “formula” critique falls short because, while Koons’s work appears simplistic,  surely anyone could come up with these ideas, is it really that easy? How many people could look at an actual balloon dog and envision a sculpture so singularly enormous, hard, and reflective? These properties create something similar to, yet so completely beyond the humble toy that its very title becomes the height of ironic absurdity.

    It may seem easy to take a toy and turn it into a sculpture, but it is not that simple. In fact, Koons created a whole series of balloon  objects, known as his Celebration series. While several have garnered attention, only Balloon Dog has gained iconic status.

        Here, Koons navigates the complexities of conceptual art with great success. Where other conceptual works are bogged down by academic titles and esoteric jargon, Koons is refreshingly literal. Balloon Dog is, quite simply, a balloon dog. By eschewing the dense language of the gallery world, he makes his work accessible to lay people as well as aficionados.

Joyous, yet Unyielding

    Whether viewed as a celebration of childhood joy or a cynical play on traditional monuments, Koons pushed the boundaries of what we consider “Art” to be. Balloon Dog is more than a toy masquerading as a sculpture; it is a mirror, quite literally, revealing our own desires, our culture, and our enduring fascination with the new. It remains joyous and unyielding, a perfect symbol for the complex irony of the late 20th century.    ​

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