Jeff Koons

Acquired by the present owner directly from the artist

Santa Monica, Eli Broad Family Foundation, Group Show, March 1998

Keith Seward, "Frankenstein in Paradise", Parkett, vol. 50, no. 51, 1997, p. 76 illustrated in color
David Rimanelli, "It's My Party, Jeff Koons: A Studio Visit", ArtForum, Summer 1997, p. 113, illustrated in color
Laurie Attias, "A Kinder Gentler Koons", Art News, March 1998, p. 160, illustrated in color (detail of March 1998 installation)
Alexander Smoltczyk, "Bombastisch bunt", Der Spiegel Kultur Extra, April 1998, pp. 6-13
David Bowie, "Super-Banalism and the Innocent Salesman", Modern Painters, Spring 1998,  p. 33, illustrated
"Flash Art XXXI Years: Three Decades Inside Art", Flash Art, Summer 1998, p. 89, illustrated in color
Burkhard Riemschneider and Uta Grosenick, eds., Art at the Turn of the Millenium, Cologne 1999, p. 288, illustrated in color

 

Monumental in scale and simultaneously joyously effusive and somewhat menacing in spirit, Jeff Koons’ Cake boldly announces the artist’s conceptual intent and his obsession with craft and surface. The present work is a magnificent example of Koons’ Celebration series: an ambitious body of sixteen ‘photo-realist’ paintings and twenty stainless steel sculptures that he began in 1994 which embrace a number of subjects that have preoccupied the artist for over twenty years: namely, the collision between the paradigms of ‘High’ and ‘Low’; culturally, aesthetically, historically and socially. The Celebration series draws upon the symbols and objects associated with the observance of life’s rituals, be they birthdays, holidays or other festive occasions. Indeed, these paintings and sculptures further Koons’ preoccupation with the objects and experiences of, specifically, childhood in previous works. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the Brobdingnagian slice of cake he presents to us; a little slice of innocent life that, as always with Koons’ searching eye and intellect, becomes darker, ominous even, in its hyper-realistic and hyperbolic presentation.

The Celebration paintings isolate and closely scrutinize a range of party detritus (be they bows, ribbons or wrapping paper) and the ‘gift’ that has been opened. In this case, a slice of cake, each crumb of its sponge and each whirl and rosette of its frosting lovingly and painstakingly rendered, sits on a bed of what appears to be metallic wrapping paper. This manifests itself, visually, as an arrangement of abstract passages of burgundies, lilacs and pinks. Each ‘highlight’ of reflection on the metallic wrapping paper is described with a fastidious attention to detail, so that from a distance, the painting works as a Photorealist painting would yet, up close, these abstract passages take on a life and meaning of their own. As much as we are seduced by the concrete image presented to us, we are also equally enamored with the almost psychedelic streams of color that are the very building blocks of this monumental painting. The handling of paint here is astonishing, so that the most banal, ordinary object is executed in baroque detail. A little piece of cake with a cute candy rose on tacky metallic wrapping paper becomes this kaleidoscopic monument to the possibilities of painting. In essence, these paintings fuse together memories of childhood with Koons’ own exacting attention to detail: as if his desire is to go back, as clearly and concretely as possible, to more innocent times. As Mario Codognato suggests, “In this highly ambitious and extraordinary series of … paintings …Jeff Koons isolates and reproduces details and criteria from [from the context of ‘celebration’], reinserting the mnemonic and nostalgic suggestions of still lives into an artistic concept” (Mario Codognato in Exh. Cat., Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Jeff Koons, 2003, p. 86).

Between 1994 and 1998, over seventy assistants were employed by Koons to complete this labor-intensive and extremely costly project, recalling the Renaissance ateliers of the cinquecento. The degree of perfection demanded by Koons for the fabrication of these enormous paintings was unheard of. Each passage of the Cake has been meticulously, laboriously rendered. No one fragment of the composition is privileged over another; whether painting a shadow or a physical object, the execution remains as focused as possible, and the result is utterly mesmerizing. Koons considers this attention to the surface as part of his commitment to the viewer. “When I make an artwork, I try to use craft as a way, hopefully, to give the viewer a sense of trust. I never want anyone to look at a painting, or to look at a sculpture, and to lose trust in it somewhere.” (Koons in David Sylvester, “Jeff Koons Interviewed”, Exh. Cat., Berlin, Deutsche Guggenheim, Easyfun – Ethereal, Berlin 2000, pp. 23-24).

Koons’ attention to a pristine surface recalls the pursuit for the ‘perfect’ surface one finds in the Pop idiom of Roy Lichtenstein. This may also be compared to the large scale compositions of James Rosenquist. Another reference is that of the work of David Salle, especially his pillaging of high and low visual culture. What distinguishes Koons’ project, however, is his employment of “… the language of the most spectacularly ornate manifestations of German Baroque and Rococo art” (Robert Rosenblum, “Dream Machine” in Ibid., pp. 49-51). The description of the sugar rose and especially the icing on the edge of the cake slice, could have been constructed by François Cuvcillié, the architect of the German Rococo architectural masterpiece, The Amalienburg (1734-1739); likewise it could have been painted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. It also recalls the ornamentation one finds in Meissen porcelain, for example. Furthermore, unlike Salle and Rosenquist, there is no linguistic play, no political comment, no psychological charge at work here. Cake is unapologetically flat, totally devoid of ‘subject matter’. The complexity of the image, and, curiously, its intellectual reward, lies in the lavish attention placed on every nuance – shadow, glint of light, metallic wrapping, sugar, sponge and icing. This is a painting that indulges the senses, being defiantly optimistic in its construction: one is treated to wonderful undulating streams of color, swirls of paint and sensuous excess imbued in the most everyday of subjects.

However, in the Koonsian universe, all is not what it seems, and nothing, certainly his choice of subject matter, is random. By depicting a slice of cake with a sugar-candy rose on it, one is instantly alerted to a number of contexts provided by the iconography of this flower. Graeco-Roman culture has the rose as a symbol of beauty, indicating the season of spring and love. Fittingly, however, it also speaks of the fleetness of time, inferring the passing from one world into the next (In Rome, the Feast of the Dead is called the Rosalia). Latin Christian iconography has the rose symbolic of Paradise, but also indicative of virtues and of categories for the Elect. The rose’s status as ‘Queen of Flowers’ is indicated as a privileged symbol for the Virgin Mary – one need only think of the rosary, for example, to understand its lexical position within Christian iconography.

This repudiation of asceticism in favor of a more sensorial affect was latent in Koons’ art long before the Made in Heaven series. One can approach works from the Luxury and Degradation series in much the same way, given their glossy, pretty polished forms and presentation. A Celebration painting such as Cake effectively works in the same way that a sculpture like Bunny does: both strive to present a form of beauty anchored on and drawn from a subject that would not necessarily afford such a presentation. Keith Seward notes in article, “Frankenstein in Paradise” (Parkett, vol. 50, no. 51) that the Celebration paintings work not because of their subjective abandonment, but precisely the opposite; that underscoring these paintings is an objectivity born out of their sharp delineation which becomes the vehicle of their empiricism. This, in turn, becomes the faith or trust between the artist and his viewer which Koons has often spoken of in interviews. Furthermore, a painting like Cake strives for universality by depicting a mass-produced ‘object’. However, as Seward notes, the aim is not literally to reach the widest audience possible but rather to evoke familiarity in the widest possible portion of an actual audience. Such an evocation causes a curious system of responses to come into play. Our personal knowledge of the subject, with all of us having had numerous personal memories of birthdays and birthday cakes, is layered onto our perception of the actual art work, so that any search for ‘meaning’ (the objective act) must follow our personal engagement with the ‘phantoms of memory’ (the subjective) we associate with such a familiar image.

One can understand a little of the power of this series if we follow the passage from utility to decoration in Koons’ earlier production. He began with The New and Equilibrium (1979-1985): basketballs or vacuum cleaners were presented like relics of a new age, encased in almost sacred vitrines for our contemplation; aqua lungs or plastic dinghy boats were cast in bronze and presented to the viewer as if recovered from some new Pompeii. 1986 saw Koons work on two series, Luxury and Degradation and Statuary: both sets of works saw the artist manipulate the mediated image, whether an advertisement for alcohol or a kitsch object such as a balloon bunny. Koons now began to appropriate given images, but ‘re-executed’ them in high-grade, very finished materials such as oil inks or stainless steel. Their perfect surfaces served to mesmerize the viewer but, in terms of the equality of treatment between High and Low subjects (a kitsch replica of Bob Hope versus a nineteenth-century bust of a sixteenth-century Italian woman), Koons also forced us to question the dichotomy between ‘High’ and ‘Low’. This trajectory reveals a number of polar opposites that, in their nexus and distinction, fuel the creative vision of Koons. This is an art anchored on the power of appropriation, of usurping a given image from a variety of media, be they ‘Low’ or ‘High’, and thrusting that image, now manipulated and invigorated, into an entirely different realm. Aesthetic and conceptual concerns now come together seamlessly in the most polished (in every sense) and ironic form of Post-modern expression. This slightly aloof, amusing yet simultaneously dark and searching gesture is powerfully displayed in Koons’ Banality series. It is from this series that Koons launches into the Celebration works, and here his voice becomes less intense, softer, warmer even. By representing these familiar forms, as opposed to presenting them, Koons’ conceptual thrust returns (albeit ironically) to a more traditional means of expression and execution. The ideas proposed by this invigorating body of work are penetrating enough, however, what elevates the work is its compelling, utterly absorbing finish. This saturated object, plucked from the ephemera of experience and memory, is amplified in the most powerful and unashamed fashion.