4. 1939. “Avante Garde and Kitsch”
Serious critics and artists must uphold the barrier between high and low
culture. Kitsch was defined as “popular, commercial art and literature
with their chromeotypes, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and
pulp fiction, comics, tin Pan Ally music, tap dancing, Hollywood
movies, etc, etc.”
The problem with these things was a lack of authenticity.
“Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious
experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style
but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is
spurious in the life of out times. Kitsch pretends
to demand nothing of its customers except their money…”
26. Koons plucks images and objects from popular culture,
framing questions about taste and pleasure. His contextual
sleight-of-hand, which transforms banal items into sumptuous
icons, takes on a psychological dimension through dramatic
shifts in scale, spectacularly engineered surfaces, and
subliminal allegories of animals, humans, and
anthropomorphized objects. The subject of art history is a
constant undercurrent, whether Koons elevates kitsch to the
level of Classical art, produces photos in the manner of
Baroque paintings, or develops public works that borrow
techniques and elements of seventeenth-century French
garden design. Organizing his own studio production in a
manner that rivals a Renaissance workshop, Koons makes
computer-assisted, handcrafted works that communicate
through their meticulous attention to detail.
27. No artist among cool "postmodernists" of
recent decades has flirted more openly with
commercialism than Jeff Koons, nor has
anyone struck so steadfastly earnest a pose
in the endeavor. Unapologetically, indeed
some say brazenly appropriating advertising
strategies, off-the-shelf merchandise, and
kitsch icons from the inventories of mass-
marketers and carriage-trade purveyors,
Koons pursues his ambitions with
missionary zeal. Self-appointed prophet of a
heaven-on-earth of unashamed materialism
and sexual bliss, Koons has gone Pop art
one or two better, making an art of "the
pitch" and "the deal," as well as objects out
Jeff Koons. (1998) Pink Panther
of the flotsam and jetsam of consumer
culture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_uzWfl2WW0&feature=related
