Jeff Koons
In her foreword, Pritzker Director of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, Madeleine Grynsztejn, describes artist Jeff Koons's work as "a panorama of our culture's desires, fantasies, absurdities, banalities, and delights" rendered with a "celebratory, almost childlike sense of wonder." Skilled in a variety of mediums and materials, Koons combines the aesthetic force of Pop, Surrealism and Imagism to produce the eye-popping exhibitions profiled here, from his 1970s Chicago work to his latest work with inflatables, enormous stainless-steel animal balloons and "Hulk Elvis." Koons' first two exhibitions, 1979's "Pre-New" and "The New," feature actual household appliances illuminated in Plexiglas cases, playfully reviving the novelty and awe these items were meant to inspire in the middle class consumer. 1988's Banality series features Koons's own Hummel-esque porcelain figurines, one of which features the Pink Panther embracing a half-naked woman, another Michael Jackson and his monkey, Bubbles. A few photographic self-portraits-as-advertising give readers a short glimpse of the artist, one of which features Koons apparently lecturing a classroom of eager children on how to "exploit the masses." In addition to exhibition overviews, Bonami also contributes several fine introductory essays and includes a long conversation between Koons and Chicago curator Lynne Warren.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.