Well? Mark Kostabi or Jeff Koons?
Disclaimer - I know nothing about this genre of art (I have no idea what you would even call it) and I haven’t really ever heard of these guys before. But out of curiosity I looked at their sites and I gotta ask, is this a serious question? You would classify this, this or this by Jeff Koons to seriously be “important art?” In contrast, Mark Kostabi’s paintings are actually interesting and appealing works of art (in my opinion, of course) that indicate some artistic talent on his part. I just don’t see any comparison.
So, what are your opinions on these guys, astro? Do you like Jeff Koons’ stuff?
I think Koons is a more important artist.
Why? And how are you defining “important?”
And what genre of art is that anyway? His stuff looks like art projects by elementary kids.
Koons is more important because he has added to the discussion of art, where Kostabi has not really pushed past what came before him.
Can you expand on this? What has he added to the discussion of art? Does this count even if the discussion is negative? Also do you have any links to any positive discussion of art relating to Koons? My curiosity is piqued.
How does a fan of Koons respond to critics (like me) who can’t understand why his stuff is even called art, and who think it looks like the work of elementary school kids?
I can’t help feeling that Koons’ entire body of work is a brilliant, decades long prank, and on his deathbed he’ll be laughing his ass off that the art world actually fell for it.
“They actually hung those photos of me fucking my porn star wife! Ha! I thought I had pushed it too far with the giant chrome inflatable rabbit, but no. What do I have to do? Shit on a paper plate and call it art?”
I’m guessing by “important artist” you mean something like who is more influential/innovative. I think Jeff Koons has influenced other artists- both visual arts and other parts of the pop culture. He’s had a lot of museum shows, gallery shows, and sold art for huge amounts of money.
I’m interested in art and go to art galleries and museums fairly regularly. I’d never heard of Mark Kostabi before. It appears from his wikipedia page that he has had a lot of exhibitions and does appear successful. I know it’s not exactly scientific, but looking on Amazon in the arts and photography books section, there are 28 books that come up when I searched for Mark Kostabi and 351 that came up when I searched for Jeff Koons.
In my humble opinion, it’s no question that Jeff Koons is the more important artist.
Jeff Koons would usually be classified as a pop artist.
This is a highly subjective discussion, of course, but at first blush I agree with ZSS.
I agree, and I think that’s why he’s more important - because his “art” has generated a lot of controversy and questions over what actually constitutes art.
Vincent Gallo writes (and I have no idea if this is actually true):
One of the issues of modern art is that people feel like it should be pretty/look pretty, but the fact of the matter is that modern art, in it’s simplest form, is to make the observer aware that they are actually looking at an object. Before modernism, art was about tricking the eye into believing that the painting wasn’t an object, but a look into another place or time. Modern art is simply saying “this painting IS a painting, it is an object, it doesn’t matter what the object depicts, all that matters is that it exists.” When you are trying to show that a painting is an object, beauty then becomes a hindrance, because people still look past the reality of what it actually is.
I also disagree that it looks anything like elementary school art. His work is very competent and professionally executed, in that the technique is flawless. It’s something that is often overlooked, but all of his textures are perfectly shiny when they should be, and there are no hints as to their construction. Craftsmanship, based on intention, is one way to judge modern art, and he certainly can be seen as a craftsman.
More importantly, his subjects have nothing at all to do with elementary school things. It’s pop art, plain and simple.
Also, children’s art has a proud history in modern art. As modern art developed, there were several offshoots that actually wanted to look like elementary school art. They were classically trained artists who could trick the eye with the best of them, but wanted to completely free themselves from the burden of tradition and making things look pretty, so they looked for inspiration with mentally ill people, kids artwork, and primal cave drawings. They wanted so badly to move past the western tradition that they looked for any time or place where western art would not have a hold.
Now, as to why Koons is a more important artist than Kostabi in terms of modern art, that would get way too technical way too fast. I’ll throw out the fact that Kostabi does some interesting things with the human figure, but nothing that really pushes past surrealism a la Magritte or De Chirico. Koons really pushed the boundries of pop art and what could be accepted as art, in the art world. He was also very influential and inspired tons of artists.
Art is not about pretty. It’s about making someone think something they may not have thought before. Among other things, of course.
So by this explanation, what gaffa said could be true: “Shit on a paper plate and call it art”…?
Maybe, but not necessarily. Art also needs to be relevant to the larger movement. Trash, now, is the “in” thing to do in art circles. It used to be art turned into something fancy, but now it’s really devolved into simply found objects and, well, trash. There’s a lot of sculpture out there now that is nothing more than junk, literally.
Artists also tend to be judged by how earnestly they believe what they produce. Jeff Koons is very, very serious about his giant balloon animals, and has spent a life time producing a body of work that proves he is, at the very least, dedicated to the general idea of pop art. A fly by night, “jokes on you” kind of artist who shat on a plate wouldn’t really be taken seriously in the art world at all.
Also, the shit thing has been done a lot, to the point where it’s almost passe. For instance, “Merda d’artista” by Manzoni. Wikipedia.
No, that’s one definition of art, and being “about pretty” is another equally valid definition of art.
Can someone explain the difference between a “work of art” like this, and tacky figurines like this, this, this, or this? If it’s not about what’s pretty, and if it’s all about making you think differently about something, then I don’t see much difference - I’m thinking pretty much the same thing when I look at any of the above.
Same with other works by Koons like this, this, or this - they all look like something I could easily find at some tacky gift shop. What am I missing?
I guess I just don’t see how something like this - Koons’ “Acrobat” - can even be in the same category (“art” or “sculpture”) as this or this.
Good question!
What makes all the difference is that Koons is labeling his stuff as “high art” and has sold them as works of “high art.” I put high art in parentheses, because conceptually, you are right - there’s no difference. They are both tacky, atrocious figurines, and both could be called art.
Modern art began by saying “This is an object.” But even still, people kept trying to find the inner beauty of painting, sculpture, whatever. Various artists and movements tried to discover forever the true language of art - Mondrian with right angles and primary colors, Picasso with cubism, etc - meaning how “true” art should be produced.
At one point, this guy Duchamp showed up. He was an artist, but he increasingly grew cynical over the art world. Where it began with “This is an object” sort of eroded into “this is a really, really pretty object!” He wanted artists, and even worse the art collectors and such who fawned over pretty works of art, to follow the logical progression of their thoughts. Meaning, if an object like a painting is a work of art, then is an object like a stool with a bicycle wheel also a work of art? They are both objects, why is one inherently more valuable than the other?
He went through several of these “found objects” as he called them. The only thing that separated the objects from when he found them in junk yards is that he was putting them into a gallery and declaring them important. Ultimately, this lead to his famous urinal, which was a prank by him because a gallery was set up that accepted all works of art.
Even modern artists were pretty pissed by the urinal. At first.
Some more decades later, people grew hip to the idea of found objects, and collectors began to pay large sums of money for really ridiculous things. Because the artists said they were art, things that have no inherent value by a normal standard suddenly had an insane, inflated value. This coincided with a time when America, and a lot of western Europe, was growing increasingly materialistic and lusted after consumer items. Long story short, Andy Warhol showed up and started to mass produce his works, which was something no one had really done before. Essentially, he commoditised art, saying “if art is really worth this much, then what happens if 1,000 of them exist?”
So, Koons is a sort of hybrid of the two ideas. It is “high art” first and foremost because Koons declares it as such, and Koons is an established name in art. Secondly, the works fetch records amount of money, which legitimizes them as valuable objects.
The statement, with those pieces, isn’t about the visuals, the color palette, the negative volume, whatever. They exist to raise the very question you’ve asked: “what makes this art?” It’s a simple question, with profound consequences.
The first one - maybe. The second two, are badass, and you won’t be able to find them at any tacky gift shop. The giant bear and the policeman, especially, has a degree of surrealism to it that I dig.
Why do both their websites suck?