Factories of Banality: The Role of Works by Jeff Koons in the Art World's Discourse of Wealth and Power

Introduction

When I was about four years old I remember a dress that I dreamt of: a sparkly, sequined, pink dress that my mother refused to buy me, justifying her decision with words such as: “You are not gonna wear that kitsch.”¹ I did not know then that, as my dreams of being a dressed in pink princess were vanishing, the public was admiring the pinkish, reflective Balloon Dog (Magenta) from the Celebration series by Jeff Koons (http://www.jeffkoons.com/artwork/celebration), and people were even paying millions of dollars to own one of these childish (in my opinion) sculptures. Since 1980, Koons sculptures have been exhibited internationally in such prestigious places as the Centre Pompidou, Venice Biennale, Whitney Museum of American Art, Château de Versailles, and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Koons, n.d.). When work is shown or purchased by a museum, it is the highest kind of institutional approval in the contemporary visual art world (Becker, 2008). What happened, then? Did my mother not recognize that I had “sublime taste” since I was a little child because I admired shiny and pinkish objects and dresses, or did I, as a 4-year-old, along with half of the art world, become drawn into the illusion and pleasure of the “simple aesthetics” that post-pop-art movements might offer?

According to Rosler (1997), “The popular and financial success of pop art proved that there might be both a wide public and a ready market for high art, as long as it did not challenge the received worldview too strenuously” (p. 21). Does the worldview of the viewer affect the perception of the artwork and thus dictate aesthetic judgment within the art world? Does the emergence of “new” elites affect the redefinition of good and bad taste? What is the role of kitsch in this new economic and intellectual discourse? Further, is it true that only the collector’s wealth affects the price of a work of art, or do any ideological factors play a role? Is it true that “it is clear that the price of an art object is limited only by the amount that collectors are willing and able to pay for it” (Goetzmann et al., 2011, p. 222)?

Paul Maltby summarized Clement Greenbergs definition of kitsch as “profit-seeking, mass-produced art pitched to the uncultivated tastes of the populace” (Maltby, 2012, p. 53). On the contrary, a famous Latin proverb says, “De gustibus non est disputandum” (literally, “about tastes, it should not be disputed/discussed”). Categorizing viewer taste might be regarded as enforcing the dominance of the elites² and their long-lasting distinctions between “high art” and “popular art,” but it might also point out what should be regarded as valuable in the modern world and what might be too recent to stand the test of time (Botti, 2000, p. 21). The authority and responsibility of developing a complex aesthetic judgment rather than a “vicarious experience and faked sensations” (Greenberg, 1961, p. 10) lay, in my opinion, in the hands of the elites, or my case in the hands of my mother, who since young age helped me to distinguish elegant clothes from what Greenberg would call “trash aesthetics” (Maltby, 2012, p. 53). As controversial as it might sound, and as much opposed to the idea of freedom and a free aesthetic judgment of the viewers it might seem, I believe that taste is something that can be trained and developed, and I am saying that based on my own experiences as a visual artist. In my opinion, it is just a matter of training, practice, and knowledge instead of taking shortcuts to the experience of aesthetic pleasure. Although using the word kitsch might seem judgmental and hierarchical, I would identify kitsch in the context of works by Jeff Koons as one of the means of his artistic expression (and here, I mean a philosophy towards art, more than the aesthetic value of the works themselves).