New York Magazine wastes no words with their May 13, 2013 Jeff Koons cover, pictured above. Photographed by Martin Schoeller, the headline reads: "Jeff Koons Is the Most Successful American Artist Since Warhol. So What’s the Art World Got Against Him?"
Good question. No: Really. It's a good question. But what's the answer? The cover story doesn't necessarily answer the question of what the art world has against Koons so much as tracing his career from readymade inflatables to his forthcoming gazing ball/classical sculpture pieces and Antiquity paitnings/Venus sculptures (the latter being shown at Gagosian Galleryfrom May 9 to June 29, 2013). If the article highlights anything, it's his isolation from the art world, and how he's trying to define his place in it during the New Paintings and Sculpture exhibition.
Similarly: Only four comparisons are made between Koons and Andy Warhol, and they're mostly in terms of being Pop artists and embodying that particular movement. By the cover and headline alone, you could be mistaken that he is, in fact, the next Andy Warhol and that the art world has something against him, but one could just as easily read the way Koons has modeled himself after Warhol in the same way he has separated himself from the art world intentionally.
Either way, for anyone interested in the current state of art, the piece is a must-read if only for its conversation-starter nature alone. And to that end, we're curious: What'd you think?
[via NewYorkMag]
