象病菌一样扩散-新奥尔良双年展
Jeff Koons
By Robert Ayers
Published: April 25, 2008
译者：胡筱潇
JEFF KOONS
点击超级资料！
纽约——你要如何开始介绍杰夫昆斯呢？He’s：杰夫昆斯重新使用了杜尚为消费时代提供的现成品，他在华尔街（Wall Street）也成为了一名可转化为商品的事物的掮客，以此支持自己的艺术制作；他是查尔斯萨奇早期狂热追崇的艺术家之一，也是当今埃利布劳德（Eli Broad）收藏的艺术家之一；他是在世艺术家中最贵艺术品拍卖纪录的持有者；他是媚俗艺术的传播者，曾是伊诺娜•斯泰勒（Illona Staller）（艺名“小白菜”，意大利著名的“色情议员”。伊诺娜一生经历非常丰富，做过间谍和成人电影明星，打出非同寻常的色情牌当上了议员） (aka La Cicciolina)的丈夫和情色搭档；他是一系列倍受瞩目的版权案例的被告；他是顶级富有的工厂规模的艺术生产公司的总裁；他也是一些最真诚却复杂的艺术作品的制造者。
大都会博物馆（Metropolitan Museum of Art）在它的屋顶花园展示了三件艺术品：《气球狗（黄色）》（Balloon Dog (Yellow)）(1994–2000)，《圣心（红色/金色）》（Sacred Heart (Red/Gold)） (1997–2005)，和《彩色书》（Coloring Book (1997–2005)）。它们在2008年整个十月展出。没有一件在此前公开展示过，它们毫无疑问在一个小时中就让顶层高达800人的观众的意见产生分离，杰夫昆斯总能使人们不能判断作品的意义
昆斯常被视为当代艺术世界最重要的经营者，在杜尚和沃霍尔不光彩的传统中：他是一个聪明的，煽动性的，始终将自我参照为偶像的人物，他像是具体化了，嘲弄地模仿出了艺术世界最大的过剩物。
但杰夫昆斯上周五在他切尔西工作室中和ARTINFO的访谈里并没有这些内容。他的相貌给人印象非常深刻，非常坦率和谦逊，尽管这些性质和他之前的一些成就是如此地不调和——包括那些他自己和“小白菜”的恶名昭彰的照片以及整版的曝光他美好生活的报纸广告——他的艺术就是购买——很难说清楚要表达什么，或者有可能还真是这样？——你自己来判断吧。
Robert Ayers：杰夫，你说你是世界上最著名的艺术家吗？
杰夫•昆斯：当然不是，还有安迪•沃霍尔……
Robert Ayers：我是说在世的最知名艺术家。
杰夫•昆斯：嗯……也不是，我很想是，但我想在艺术这方面是这样，在我想成为艺术家这个事情上充满野心。我希望我能做得更多，但如何评判并不那么这样。
Robert Ayers：这难道不是“人气艺术家”杰夫•昆斯更新艺术的文字的一部分吗？
杰夫•昆斯：不，有很多方面的名声开始起来，则对我一点都不重要，“名声”这个词暗示说艺术家有多重要，但其实它和艺术家没什么关系，它只和作品有关系。
很多人认为，我的工作和最后呈现出的作品扮演看艺术和公众的中介角色，我却不这么看，我讨厌这些……
Robert Ayers：时代周刊用整整一版来报道你的孩子抚养权案（注解：昆斯和伊诺娜这段因利益而结合的婚姻只维持不到一年就破灭了。离婚后没多久，儿子路德维西出生。昆斯和伊诺娜开始展开一场旷日持久的抚养权争夺大战，官司一直打到1998年，昆斯才取得了抚养权，但孩子还是被伊诺娜留在了意大利。跟伊诺娜分手后，昆斯沉寂了七八年），你认为这是他们商业运作的一部分？还是这对你来说更是作品的一个重要组成部分？
杰夫•昆斯：我希望这是一个很基本的私人事务，非常私人。顺便说一下，我已经支付了孩子的抚养费，尽管我的儿子被“拐”到了国外或者怎么样，一直以来我都在给孩子抚养费。
我总是尝试让我最大强度的被作品影响、被作品所驱使，花时间去交流，去言说，去和人们就作品结合在一起。我总是试图作品成为一个平台，但同时我又不想让它仅仅是平台，它是影响艺术内部本身的东西。
Robert Ayers：你解释一下，什么叫“影响艺术内部的东西”。
杰夫•昆斯：当你看一个作品，这不仅仅是一种智性经验。它也是物理、身体层面上的经验。人们喜欢作品是因为这个作品是他们感到了（除日常经验以外）还有一种可能性。我想要我的作品有一种契机，我相信那些观看作品后产生好感的人感触是强烈的，这种强度也在我看其他艺术家作品时产生过。我喜欢这种感觉，我还要做得更多。理解层面越大越宏观，我们在对待那些事情的时候就越敏感。
Robert Ayers：如果是那样的话，你的作品变得“出名”了，变得妇孺皆知，这重要吗？
杰夫•昆斯：“变得著名”和“变得重要”是两回事。我要的是“变得重要”——任何事都可以使你变得富裕和有能力把一些事放大——我真的没有把“名望”等同于“名望带来的好处”。
Robert Ayers：那么，在大都会博物馆楼顶的那些作品你希望它们获得什么？
杰夫•昆斯：第一，那是一个很棒的区域。我的作品从来没有四周如此水平的空间，它们都在房顶上，对作品而言，似乎突获得数量如此庞大的空间，产生的空旷感就让人印象深刻。
但最意义重大的是能够和藏品对话：气球狗和传说有关。一个小骑士、一块小马嚼子，有点像特洛伊木马，即便它是一只狗，甚至这个做气球风格的动物的行为也颇似一个古代的行为，从远古文明而来，从内部开始……《圣心》链接早期基督教作品和欧洲历史；《彩色书》则和大都会美术馆的现代主义作品收藏有关。
Robert Ayers：你过去所说的和艺术家的对话对你来说至关重要，不是吗？
杰夫•昆斯：当我很年轻的时候，我希望能有机会和利希滕斯坦、安迪•沃霍尔、劳申伯格、达利、毕卡比亚还有杜尚对话，再往前推就是布歇和法根勒等等……我承认我有局限性，但我也想扩展任何可能性。对我来说艺术是使我自我接受的媒介，从接受一个对象的概念开始——世界中的外部事物——然而转移到真实的内部层面，转移到其他任何可能都可以融入其中的内部。
对我来说，艺术调动我全部“潜能”，也能调动观众提高他们的“潜能”。我的作品尝试交流这种接受度。不再是一无所有的对象，因为艺术关于人、生活、经验。使观众有所触动以至于进一步地充满这希望地、维持着足够的信心去感受这种交流。
Robert Ayers：听起来很像佛教（这个老外太表面地理解佛教了，这里他应该指的是禅宗在方法上追求的一些意境——译者注）
杰夫•昆斯：我确实希望艺术是一种聚集，连接世界所有的学科知识。艺术能做到这一点是因为它是如此开放，如此容易阐释事物（后一句应该是说，艺术的暧昧性，本身即无法言说的特性正好对应、正好阐释了同样具有复杂性的世上之事物——译者注）。它连接哲学、心理学、美学、物理和其他任一学科的理论。
Robert Ayers：艺术能改变世界吗？
杰夫•昆斯：人——人表现出的姿态——是可以改变世界的。艺术是传到人对世界的这些姿态的媒介。所以我认为，是的。艺术可以改变世界。
Robert Ayers：艺术是政治性的吗？
杰夫•昆斯：当人们讨论政治艺术的时候，他们其实说的东西是一个维度的，非此即彼，没有打开问题本身上升到一个“大的政治”的观点。但我确实不想关心个人所能延伸到的层面，我总是认为我的艺术早就是非常的“大的政治”了。
Robert Ayers：你做作品有故意煽动的嫌疑？
杰夫•昆斯：不。我还是个年轻艺术家的时候我就对前卫充满了敬仰。我仅仅喜欢尝试一些点子使一些事变得更新颖更不同，因为这样很多事情就可以集中在一个平台上（而不是相互割裂）。我坚信如果你想要让一些东西一直有震撼人心的力量。它就必定不再是这个事物的原型、表面图像或者其他。最震撼的东西反而单纯、真诚。如果你对自己确实是真诚的，人们会在其中发现震撼人心的力量的。
Robert Ayers：如果说一些人看到《圣心》非常震撼，那么这个作品背后是有什么东西吗？
杰夫•昆斯：《圣心》的意义不是特别明确，来自于作品本身。我在慕尼黑看到一个被玻璃纸包装起来的心形巧克力，它前面有两个人物——一个小男孩一个小女孩——我把他们去掉了，这样显得平衡。一些平衡总是在一个恰到好处的点上。这个作品有足足两顿重，几乎是纯不锈钢。但它看起来其实又挺美的。它的心尖就像芭蕾舞者的脚尖。有点挑战重力的味道。作品紧紧地凝固在巴洛克和一些现代意味中。它表现出了浪漫的爱、纯精神上的爱或者基督式的爱。这把弓也是一个礼品，或者可以被看成一顶荆冠。
Robert Ayers：不锈钢擦得这么亮，简直可以反光了，但它们的表面反射的物象也是被扭曲的——真实被扭曲。对观众而言，发现作品自身中的意义需要引导吗？
杰夫•昆斯：到某种程度，作品好比变色龙，如果不是，那么一些人会呆呆地在它的面前什么也感受不到。事物变了，作品得能变动地吸引人们去赋予它们意义或者从中去寻找。
Robert Ayers：《圣心》是一件宗教作品吗？
杰夫•昆斯：我不是在任何标准领域解决问题。如果一些人发现了重大的意义或者什么，那也挺好的。无论如何，这能推进作品，很奇异。我相信物品的社会性在增强，人们对外界姿态、无政府状态和其他等等问题思考的绝对自由，在它们不危及他人的时候；我相信艺术可以拥有世界上所有的自由，但伴随而生的是道德责任。所以，在接受道德责任的前提下，该拥有所有的权力。
Robert Ayers：你正好在你的对话中谈到安迪•沃霍尔。他说他是一个“商业艺术家”。你也是这样的吗？
杰夫•昆斯：我不是商业艺术家，我想安迪•沃霍尔也不是。我的作品不商业，我被培养得独断独行，所以无论我做什么我都要能够照顾我自己和我的家庭。我是有某些要求，但这和任何一种对成功的渴求都是一样的。
Robert Ayers：仅仅作为创作的必要手段，许多艺术家在生产着你这样类型的艺术作品，这是你进行的庞大的工程吗？
杰夫•昆斯：我和商业艺术无关，那不是我的兴趣。我的兴趣只在艺术上。我记得我16岁的时候我打开收音机听齐柏林飞船乐队的歌，那个时候我开始意识到艺术的能量有多大——这是一个非常感性和互动的经验——我当时甚至以为自己就是他们其中的一员。
注解：
2008年4月大都会博物馆屋顶花园开幕杰夫•昆斯个展“屋顶花园上的杰夫•昆斯” ，这个新展览首次展出这位美国艺术家的三座新雕塑纽约大都会博物馆自1987年开放屋顶花园以来，每年都会在这个眺望纽约市景的绝佳之地举办艺术展览。出的这三件雕塑都是来自于昆斯自1993年开始创作的“庆典”系列：10英尺多高的昆斯的《气球狗（黄）》（1994-2000）是以高铬不锈钢为材配以透明的彩色涂层。这件高度反光的作品，对细节做了极佳的诠释，使外观看上去宛若真实动物的气球；《圣心》（1994-2007）是一个巨大的精心包装的箔糖果，它借用了天主教徒想象中的耶稣基督的圣心的印象。这件作品近12英尺高，令人印象十分深刻；《彩色书》的创作灵感来源于一本小熊维尼的彩色书，书中一页上有维尼的同伴小猪。昆斯在书上做了记号，在不同地方上取色，然后将小猪的图像运用到了作品之中。最后成就了这座高18英尺的雕塑，带有明显的漫画色彩特征。
2008年4月大都会博物馆屋顶花园开幕杰夫•昆斯个展“屋顶花园上的杰夫•昆斯” ，这个新展览首次展出这位美国艺术家的三座新雕塑纽约大都会博物馆自1987年开放屋顶花园以来，每年都会在这个眺望纽约市景的绝佳之地举办艺术展览。出的这三件雕塑都是来自于昆斯自1993年开始创作的“庆典”系列：10英尺多高的昆斯的《气球狗（黄）》（1994-2000）是以高铬不锈钢为材配以透明的彩色涂层。这件高度反光的作品，对细节做了极佳的诠释，使外观看上去宛若真实动物的气球；《圣心》（1994-2007）是一个巨大的精心包装的箔糖果，它借用了天主教徒想象中的耶稣基督的圣心的印象。这件作品近12英尺高，令人印象十分深刻；《彩色书》的创作灵感来源于一本小熊维尼的彩色书，书中一页上有维尼的同伴小猪。昆斯在书上做了记号，在不同地方上取色，然后将小猪的图像运用到了作品之中。最后成就了这座高18英尺的雕塑，带有明显的漫画色彩特征。
“成为著名和成为重要的人物，这两者间有很大的不同”杰夫昆斯说，“我对重要更感兴趣—什么都可以让我们的生活富有，并使它们变得膨胀—但我确实对为了名望而存在的名望不感兴趣”
"There’s a difference between being famous and being significant," says Jeff Koons. "I’m interested in significance — anything that can enrich our lives and make them vaster — but I’m really not interested in the idea of fame for fame’s sake."
Courtesy Jeff Koons LLC
杰夫昆斯“气球狗（黄色）”（1994-2000），纽约大都会博物馆，装置，2008
“气球狗，这是一件那样进入神话的作品”昆斯说，“它是一个小骑士，有点像木马计，但它只是一只狗”
Jeff Koons, "Balloon Dog (Yellow)" (1994–2000), installation view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2008
"A piece like Balloon Dog taps into the mythic," Koons says. "It’s a little equestrian, a little bit like a Trojan Horse, even though it’s a dog."
Photo by Anna Marie Kellen/The Metropolitan Museum of Art, © Jeff Koons
"There’s a difference between being famous and being significant," says Jeff Koons. "I’m interested in significance — anything that can enrich our lives and make them vaster — but I’m really not interested in the idea of fame for fame’s sake."
Courtesy Jeff Koons LLC
杰夫昆斯“气球狗（黄色）”（1994-2000），纽约大都会博物馆，装置，2008
“气球狗，这是一件那样进入神话的作品”昆斯说，“它是一个小骑士，有点像木马计，但它只是一只狗”
Jeff Koons, "Balloon Dog (Yellow)" (1994–2000), installation view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2008
"A piece like Balloon Dog taps into the mythic," Koons says. "It’s a little equestrian, a little bit like a Trojan Horse, even though it’s a dog."
Photo by Anna Marie Kellen/The Metropolitan Museum of Art, © Jeff Koons
杰夫昆斯，“彩色的书”（1997-2005）和“圣心（红色/金色）”（1994-2007），纽约首都美术馆，装置，2008
Jeff Koons, "Coloring Book" (1997–2005) and "Sacred Heart (Red/Gold)" (1994–2007), installation view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2008
"My works have never had so much horizontal space around them," says Koons. "They’re up there on the roof, and all of a sudden the amount of space, the vastness, the void around them is really remarkable."
Photo by Anna Marie Kellen/The Metropolitan Museum of Art, © Jeff Koons
杰夫昆斯，“圣心（红色/金色）”（1994-2007），纽约首都博物馆，装置，2008
“圣心”可以展现罗曼蒂克的爱，或柏拉图式的爱，或基督教的爱“昆斯说，“拱形说明它是一个礼物，或者它像是一个荆棘的皇冠”
Jeff Koons, "Sacred Heart (Red/Gold)" (1994–2007), installation view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2008
"Sacred Heart" "could represent romantic love or spiritual love or Christian love," says Koons. "The bow might suggest that it is a present. Or it could be like a crown of thorns."
原文：
出处：http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27454/jeff-koons/
NEW YORK—How do you even begin to introduce Jeff Koons? He’s: the artist who reinvented Duchamp’s readymades for the consumer age and who became a Wall Street commodities broker to support his art-making; one of Charles Saatchi’s early enthusiasms and now one of Eli Broad’s; the holder of the record for most expensive piece by a living artist ever sold at auction; a peddler of kitsch and the sometime husband and porn-partner of Illona Staller (aka La Cicciolina); a serial defendant in high-profile copyright cases; the super-rich supremo of a factory-scale art production company; and the maker of some of the most genuinely perplexing works of art out there. This week the Metropolitan Museum of Art unveiled three of them on its roof: Balloon Dog (Yellow) (1994–2000), Sacred Heart (Red/Gold) (1997–2005), and Coloring Book (1997–2005). They will be there through October. None has been displayed publicly before, and they will no doubt split opinion among the roof’s up to 800 visitors an hour, as Koons’s work always does — people can’t decide whether it means far more, or far less, than it seems.
Koons is often seen as the contemporary art world’s supreme operator, in the ignoble tradition of Duchamp and Warhol: an intelligent, provocative, consistently self-referential icon who seems to both embody and parody the art world’s worst excesses and to stay one jump ahead of his audience’s expectations at all times.
But the Jeff Koons who talked to ARTINFO in his Chelsea studio last Friday would have none of this. In person he comes across as straightforward and self-effacing, though these qualities are so incongruous with some of the efforts he’s put into self-promotion in the past — including those pictures of himself in flagrante with La Cicciolina and the full-page newspaper ads he took out to highlight the good life that his art buys — that it’s hard to know which presentation, if either, is the real thing. Decide for yourself.
Jeff, would you say you are you the most famous artist in the world?
No, absolutely not. There’s Warhol…
I meant the most famous living artist.
Mmmm…no. I’m ambitious, but I’m ambitious about art, and I’m ambitious about what I can become as an artist. Hopefully I have more to contribute. But how that’s judged is not important.
But isn’t the celebrity-artist Jeff Koons part of the context that you’ve created for your art?
No. There are some aspects of celebrity that come into play, but that’s really not important to me. The word “celebrity” suggests that the artist is important, but it’s not about the artist. It’s about the work.
A lot of people think that I’ve worked with publicity agencies and things like that, but I never have. I’m weary of some of those things …
When the Times runs a piece about you being sued for child support, do you think it’s any of their business? Do you think it has any significance to your work?
I like to keep basically personal things very personal. And by the way, I’ve been paying child-support. Even though my son was abducted and taken to a foreign country and all that, I’ve always paid child support constantly through this whole time.
But I’ve always tried to the best of my ability to be at the service of the work, to give time to communicate and inform and interact with people about the work. I’ve always tried to help the work have a platform, but at the same time I realize that it’s not about the platform, it’s about the visceral art itself.
Can you explain what you mean by “visceral”?
When you view work, it’s not just an intellectual experience. It’s also a physical, biological experience. People like work that makes them feel a certain way. I want my work to have a certain charge, and I think that people who view the work like it, that intensity. It’s the same intensity that I get when I view other artists’ work. I like that. I want more of that. And the greater understanding I have, the more sensitive I am to that.
Well in that case, is it important that your work be “famous,” or extremely well known?
There’s a difference between being famous and being significant. I’m interested in significance — anything that can enrich our lives and make them vaster — but I’m really not interested in the idea of fame for fame’s sake.
So, what’s it like to have your works on the roof of the Met?
First, it is a wonderful location. My works have never had so much horizontal space around them. They’re up there on the roof, and all of a sudden the amount of space, the vastness, the void around them is really remarkable.
But most significant is being able to have a dialog with the collection: A piece like Balloon Dog taps into the mythic. It’s a little equestrian, a little bit like a Trojan Horse, even though it’s a dog. Even the act of making balloon-type animals like that, it’s supposedly quite an ancient act, from primitive cultures, of working with intestines.… Sacred Heart feels as though it’s connected to early Christian work and European history. And Coloring Book relates to the modernist part of the Metropolitan’s collection.
What you call a “dialog” with artists of the past has always been important to you, hasn’t it?
When I was younger, I always wanted to have a dialog with Roy Lichtenstein and Andy [Warhol] and Rauschenberg, with Dali and Picabia and Duchamp, and back on through Boucher and Fragonard, and on and on … Although I’ve always accepted that I had limitations, I always wanted to expand to whatever was possible. For me art has been a vehicle of self-acceptance. That started with the idea of accepting objects — external things in the world — then moved into what it’s really about, the acceptance of others.
For me, art has been about living to my full potential and about having viewers increase theirs. My work has always tried to communicate acceptance. It’s not about a rarefied object, because art is about people, life, experience. It’s about giving attention to the viewer so that hopefully they maintain enough confidence to experience communication.
You almost sound Buddhist.
I do believe that art is a hub that connects all of the disciplines of the world. Art can do that because it is so open and so easily clarifies things. It’s connects theology with philosophy and psychology and aesthetics and physics and any other discipline.
Can art change the world?
I think that people — and people’s gestures — change the world. And art is a vehicle of people’s gestures. So yes, I think that art changes the world.
Do you think of your art as political?
When people talk about political art, they generally mean something that is one-dimensional, about one cause or one specific issue, that doesn’t open itself up to much greater political issues. But I’m really dealing with the empowerment of the individual. I’ve always thought my art has been very political.
Do you make your art deliberately provocative?
No. When I was a younger artist I had great respect for the avant-garde. I just loved the idea of trying to make something new and different, because it was about bringing something to the table. But I believe that if you try to make something just to shock it ends up not having a very long lifespan. It’s not going to be archetypal or iconic or anything. What’s most shocking is honesty. If you’re really honest with yourself, that’s what people really find most shocking.
Well, one piece people might find shocking is Sacred Heart. What’s behind that work?
The meaning of Sacred Heart is not specific, and it comes from the work itself. I remember seeing a chocolate heart in Munich wrapped in reflective cellophane. It had two figures on the front – a little boy and a little girl – and I removed them to try to make something that balances. The piece balances on a fine point. It weighs a couple of tons. There’s a lot of steel there. But it tries to be somewhat graceful. It’s up on its toe like a ballerina. There’s some defying of gravity. It’s also on a tightrope between the baroque and something a little more modern. It could represent romantic love or spiritual love or Christian love. The bow might suggest that it is a present. Or it could be like a crown of thorns.
Your polished steel pieces are highly reflective, but their surfaces also distort reality. Is that an invitation for the viewer to find their own meanings in the work?
Well, I think that works have to be chameleon to a certain degree. If a work isn’t chameleon, eventually someone is going to be in front of it and not find any meaning. Things change and works have to be adaptable to be able to absorb meanings that people place on them or find in them.
Is Sacred Heart a religious work?
I’m not involved in any standardized religion. If somebody finds significance or meaning in something, that’s absolutely wonderful. And whatever that meaning or significance is, if it helps to push against somebody’s parameters, then that’s fantastic. I believe in things being socially benefiting. I believe in absolute freedom of gesture and anarchy and all of these things, as long as it doesn’t endanger others. I believe that art should have all the freedom in the world. But there is a moral responsibility that comes along with that. So you should embrace all that power but then accept the moral responsibility as well.
You were just talking about your dialog with Warhol. He said that he wanted to be a “business artist.” Is that what you are?
I am not a business artist. And I would like to think that Andy wasn’t either. My work’s not about business, but I was brought up to be very self-reliant, so whatever I do in life I believe I should be able to take care of myself and my family. There are certain demands, but that’s the same with any kind of success.
Is this huge operation that you run, with these dozens of artists producing your art, just the necessary means of making the work?
That’s right. I’m not involved in business art, that’s not my interest. My interest has always been in art. I remember when I was 16 and I turned on the radio and heard Led Zeppelin. That was when I came into contact with how powerful art can be. It was a very moving experience, and I thought, “I want part of this.”
出处：http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27454/jeff-koons/
NEW YORK—How do you even begin to introduce Jeff Koons? He’s: the artist who reinvented Duchamp’s readymades for the consumer age and who became a Wall Street commodities broker to support his art-making; one of Charles Saatchi’s early enthusiasms and now one of Eli Broad’s; the holder of the record for most expensive piece by a living artist ever sold at auction; a peddler of kitsch and the sometime husband and porn-partner of Illona Staller (aka La Cicciolina); a serial defendant in high-profile copyright cases; the super-rich supremo of a factory-scale art production company; and the maker of some of the most genuinely perplexing works of art out there. This week the Metropolitan Museum of Art unveiled three of them on its roof: Balloon Dog (Yellow) (1994–2000), Sacred Heart (Red/Gold) (1997–2005), and Coloring Book (1997–2005). They will be there through October. None has been displayed publicly before, and they will no doubt split opinion among the roof’s up to 800 visitors an hour, as Koons’s work always does — people can’t decide whether it means far more, or far less, than it seems.
Koons is often seen as the contemporary art world’s supreme operator, in the ignoble tradition of Duchamp and Warhol: an intelligent, provocative, consistently self-referential icon who seems to both embody and parody the art world’s worst excesses and to stay one jump ahead of his audience’s expectations at all times.
But the Jeff Koons who talked to ARTINFO in his Chelsea studio last Friday would have none of this. In person he comes across as straightforward and self-effacing, though these qualities are so incongruous with some of the efforts he’s put into self-promotion in the past — including those pictures of himself in flagrante with La Cicciolina and the full-page newspaper ads he took out to highlight the good life that his art buys — that it’s hard to know which presentation, if either, is the real thing. Decide for yourself.
Jeff, would you say you are you the most famous artist in the world?
No, absolutely not. There’s Warhol…
I meant the most famous living artist.
Mmmm…no. I’m ambitious, but I’m ambitious about art, and I’m ambitious about what I can become as an artist. Hopefully I have more to contribute. But how that’s judged is not important.
But isn’t the celebrity-artist Jeff Koons part of the context that you’ve created for your art?
No. There are some aspects of celebrity that come into play, but that’s really not important to me. The word “celebrity” suggests that the artist is important, but it’s not about the artist. It’s about the work.
A lot of people think that I’ve worked with publicity agencies and things like that, but I never have. I’m weary of some of those things …
When the Times runs a piece about you being sued for child support, do you think it’s any of their business? Do you think it has any significance to your work?
I like to keep basically personal things very personal. And by the way, I’ve been paying child-support. Even though my son was abducted and taken to a foreign country and all that, I’ve always paid child support constantly through this whole time.
But I’ve always tried to the best of my ability to be at the service of the work, to give time to communicate and inform and interact with people about the work. I’ve always tried to help the work have a platform, but at the same time I realize that it’s not about the platform, it’s about the visceral art itself.
Can you explain what you mean by “visceral”?
When you view work, it’s not just an intellectual experience. It’s also a physical, biological experience. People like work that makes them feel a certain way. I want my work to have a certain charge, and I think that people who view the work like it, that intensity. It’s the same intensity that I get when I view other artists’ work. I like that. I want more of that. And the greater understanding I have, the more sensitive I am to that.
Well in that case, is it important that your work be “famous,” or extremely well known?
There’s a difference between being famous and being significant. I’m interested in significance — anything that can enrich our lives and make them vaster — but I’m really not interested in the idea of fame for fame’s sake.
So, what’s it like to have your works on the roof of the Met?
First, it is a wonderful location. My works have never had so much horizontal space around them. They’re up there on the roof, and all of a sudden the amount of space, the vastness, the void around them is really remarkable.
But most significant is being able to have a dialog with the collection: A piece like Balloon Dog taps into the mythic. It’s a little equestrian, a little bit like a Trojan Horse, even though it’s a dog. Even the act of making balloon-type animals like that, it’s supposedly quite an ancient act, from primitive cultures, of working with intestines.… Sacred Heart feels as though it’s connected to early Christian work and European history. And Coloring Book relates to the modernist part of the Metropolitan’s collection.
What you call a “dialog” with artists of the past has always been important to you, hasn’t it?
When I was younger, I always wanted to have a dialog with Roy Lichtenstein and Andy [Warhol] and Rauschenberg, with Dali and Picabia and Duchamp, and back on through Boucher and Fragonard, and on and on … Although I’ve always accepted that I had limitations, I always wanted to expand to whatever was possible. For me art has been a vehicle of self-acceptance. That started with the idea of accepting objects — external things in the world — then moved into what it’s really about, the acceptance of others.
For me, art has been about living to my full potential and about having viewers increase theirs. My work has always tried to communicate acceptance. It’s not about a rarefied object, because art is about people, life, experience. It’s about giving attention to the viewer so that hopefully they maintain enough confidence to experience communication.
You almost sound Buddhist.
I do believe that art is a hub that connects all of the disciplines of the world. Art can do that because it is so open and so easily clarifies things. It’s connects theology with philosophy and psychology and aesthetics and physics and any other discipline.
Can art change the world?
I think that people — and people’s gestures — change the world. And art is a vehicle of people’s gestures. So yes, I think that art changes the world.
Do you think of your art as political?
When people talk about political art, they generally mean something that is one-dimensional, about one cause or one specific issue, that doesn’t open itself up to much greater political issues. But I’m really dealing with the empowerment of the individual. I’ve always thought my art has been very political.
Do you make your art deliberately provocative?
No. When I was a younger artist I had great respect for the avant-garde. I just loved the idea of trying to make something new and different, because it was about bringing something to the table. But I believe that if you try to make something just to shock it ends up not having a very long lifespan. It’s not going to be archetypal or iconic or anything. What’s most shocking is honesty. If you’re really honest with yourself, that’s what people really find most shocking.
Well, one piece people might find shocking is Sacred Heart. What’s behind that work?
The meaning of Sacred Heart is not specific, and it comes from the work itself. I remember seeing a chocolate heart in Munich wrapped in reflective cellophane. It had two figures on the front – a little boy and a little girl – and I removed them to try to make something that balances. The piece balances on a fine point. It weighs a couple of tons. There’s a lot of steel there. But it tries to be somewhat graceful. It’s up on its toe like a ballerina. There’s some defying of gravity. It’s also on a tightrope between the baroque and something a little more modern. It could represent romantic love or spiritual love or Christian love. The bow might suggest that it is a present. Or it could be like a crown of thorns.
Your polished steel pieces are highly reflective, but their surfaces also distort reality. Is that an invitation for the viewer to find their own meanings in the work?
Well, I think that works have to be chameleon to a certain degree. If a work isn’t chameleon, eventually someone is going to be in front of it and not find any meaning. Things change and works have to be adaptable to be able to absorb meanings that people place on them or find in them.
Is Sacred Heart a religious work?
I’m not involved in any standardized religion. If somebody finds significance or meaning in something, that’s absolutely wonderful. And whatever that meaning or significance is, if it helps to push against somebody’s parameters, then that’s fantastic. I believe in things being socially benefiting. I believe in absolute freedom of gesture and anarchy and all of these things, as long as it doesn’t endanger others. I believe that art should have all the freedom in the world. But there is a moral responsibility that comes along with that. So you should embrace all that power but then accept the moral responsibility as well.
You were just talking about your dialog with Warhol. He said that he wanted to be a “business artist.” Is that what you are?
I am not a business artist. And I would like to think that Andy wasn’t either. My work’s not about business, but I was brought up to be very self-reliant, so whatever I do in life I believe I should be able to take care of myself and my family. There are certain demands, but that’s the same with any kind of success.
Is this huge operation that you run, with these dozens of artists producing your art, just the necessary means of making the work?
That’s right. I’m not involved in business art, that’s not my interest. My interest has always been in art. I remember when I was 16 and I turned on the radio and heard Led Zeppelin. That was when I came into contact with how powerful art can be. It was a very moving experience, and I thought, “I want part of this.”
当人们讨论政治艺术的时候，他们其实说的东西是一个维度的，非此即彼，没有打开问题本身上升到一个“大的政治”的观点。但我确实不想关心个人所能延伸到的层面，我总是认为我的艺术早就是非常的“大的政治”了。
---好!
---好!
