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Lot Essay
Jeff Koons' ability to create seductively luscious images is compelling in Hennessy, The Civilized Way to Lay Down the Law, a work that displays contemporary advertising and media at its most alluring. A conventionally beautiful couple share a private moment, he-pulled from his intellectual pursuits, thick books and notes before him, glasses dangling-responds with a salacious smile; she-a loose blouse lazily draped revealing a tantalizingly exposed shoulder, a proffered cognac in hand-lures him with the promise of sexual pleasures. In the background, a soft light bathes the pillow-bestrewn bed, both an invitation and a goal. Hennessy not only is the catalyst for physical desire and its consummation, but also the guarantor of economic prosperity and social distinction. Here, amid the material evidence of middle-class status, gratification is only a drink away.
Koons, smart, thoughtful, and insistent, acknowledges the myths of contemporary culture. Hennessy, The Civilized Way to Lay Down the Law is among the most impressive of his works that addresses directly the media's manipulation of our aspirations for social status and wealth. By conferring prestige on coveted objects, advertisers manipulate race, class, and gender stereotypes. Koons' canny duplication of the advertisement for Hennessy cognac, brings into focus the consumerist myth that by wearing, drinking, or owning an object, he or she can participate in the lifestyle suggested by the image. Further, Koons takes on racial stereotyping as it is encoded in this image, which targets the upwardly mobile African-American audience. Koon's duplication on canvas also challenges the assumption that such lifestyle fetishes are desirable. Koon's also examines the stereotype of gender: men as productive, if susceptible; women as seductresses and tantalizers. The title, too, is suggestive: whose law is it, and how might one interpret it.
Koons' subject is American culture and the myths involved in mass-media advertising; his representational strategy is one of appropriation, from advertisements to vacuum cleaners, toys, and cartoons, following in an art-historical trajectory from Kurt Schwitters to Duchamp. In his thematically titled series Luxury and Degradation (1986), in which he meticulously copies actual advertisements, Koons uses photo-realism to question the ideology of branding and celebrity. Exploring popular obsessions with commerce, media, sexuality, and celebrity, Koons continually pushes his critiques of class, power, and materialism. While Koons' sources are magazines and images taken off the computer, what distinguishes these works is Koons' demand for consummate technique and a virtuosic mastery of materials and scale from his studio of artisans. Conceptually, Koons challenges notion of high and low art and of the status of commodities, while endowing his works with energy and power. His presentations are always as fresh, appealing, and pointed as his words about them: "I love Pop art, and I really want to play with aspects of Pop. So much of the world is advertising, and because of that, individuals feel that they have to present themselves as a package" (Exh. Cat., Berlin, Deutsche Guggenheim, Easyfun-Ethereal, 2000, p. 18). Hennessy is among the most immediately affecting and provocative presentations of his artistry, a postmodernist melding of high and low culture that pushes aesthetic boundaries with its technique, ironic presentation, and compelling, if fetishistic, subject matter.
Koons, smart, thoughtful, and insistent, acknowledges the myths of contemporary culture. Hennessy, The Civilized Way to Lay Down the Law is among the most impressive of his works that addresses directly the media's manipulation of our aspirations for social status and wealth. By conferring prestige on coveted objects, advertisers manipulate race, class, and gender stereotypes. Koons' canny duplication of the advertisement for Hennessy cognac, brings into focus the consumerist myth that by wearing, drinking, or owning an object, he or she can participate in the lifestyle suggested by the image. Further, Koons takes on racial stereotyping as it is encoded in this image, which targets the upwardly mobile African-American audience. Koon's duplication on canvas also challenges the assumption that such lifestyle fetishes are desirable. Koon's also examines the stereotype of gender: men as productive, if susceptible; women as seductresses and tantalizers. The title, too, is suggestive: whose law is it, and how might one interpret it.
Koons' subject is American culture and the myths involved in mass-media advertising; his representational strategy is one of appropriation, from advertisements to vacuum cleaners, toys, and cartoons, following in an art-historical trajectory from Kurt Schwitters to Duchamp. In his thematically titled series Luxury and Degradation (1986), in which he meticulously copies actual advertisements, Koons uses photo-realism to question the ideology of branding and celebrity. Exploring popular obsessions with commerce, media, sexuality, and celebrity, Koons continually pushes his critiques of class, power, and materialism. While Koons' sources are magazines and images taken off the computer, what distinguishes these works is Koons' demand for consummate technique and a virtuosic mastery of materials and scale from his studio of artisans. Conceptually, Koons challenges notion of high and low art and of the status of commodities, while endowing his works with energy and power. His presentations are always as fresh, appealing, and pointed as his words about them: "I love Pop art, and I really want to play with aspects of Pop. So much of the world is advertising, and because of that, individuals feel that they have to present themselves as a package" (Exh. Cat., Berlin, Deutsche Guggenheim, Easyfun-Ethereal, 2000, p. 18). Hennessy is among the most immediately affecting and provocative presentations of his artistry, a postmodernist melding of high and low culture that pushes aesthetic boundaries with its technique, ironic presentation, and compelling, if fetishistic, subject matter.