Atlantica - 01.07.2004, Qupperneq 20

18 A T L A N T I C A
In the café of the National Gallery of
Iceland, Jeff Koons begins the interview by
choosing his seat. He chose the right-hand
seat during the previous interview that
day, and politely asks if I would mind him
taking the couch this time. Danish open
sandwiches litter the table in front of us.
We ask for coffees and start off with small
talk.
He arrived in Iceland with his family the
morning before. He flew in from Washing-
ton, but his wife and family came in from
New York. Their flights landed five min-
utes apart. Mr. Koons takes great pleasure
during our interview in describing small
details like this. In relating them to me, his
eyes glaze over and his voice becomes dis-
tant. As with his art, the mundane can sud-
denly become all-important.
FROM POINT A TO POINT B
Growing up in rural Pennsylvania didn’t
lend itself much to an interest in art.
Though Koons’ hometown of York was the
first capital of the United States, few would
mistake it for an arts centre. Koons’ search
“for a community to hang out with” took
him to New York City soon after his gradu-
ation from the Art Institute of Chicago at
the age of twenty-one.
“To come to New York was so refresh-
ing – to get involved with conceptualism
and work that was more Duchamp-based
was really liberating. Since that time, I’ve
always appreciated and I think that it’s
important [for] an artist [to have] an anchor
in personal iconography, but that a tran-
scendence into mass iconography in art is
a higher calling”
Talking with Jeff Koons is like turning the
faucets on Robert Gober’s untitled right-
angled sink, another piece in the exhibi-
tion. The taps don’t turn, but the sink is full
of water and you have no idea how it got
there.
As Koons talks more about the subject of
personal iconography, his point becomes
clearer. Art, he says frequently, should be
accessible by everyone. If he is successful
with a work, it can be approached by any-
one regardless of their knowledge of art
history. Hence, the use of popular culture
icons that introduce the viewer to the
piece. With most art, that introduction
only happens for the select few who are
sophisticated enough to understand it.
“Nobody has to know who Dali is, or
Magritte is, for me to be forming sen-
tences and vocabularies with them. My
work tries to just embrace the viewer.
Whatever they get from it is exactly what
they should be getting. Whatever way
they look at it, is exactly the way they
should look at it. It’s nothing more and
nothing less.”
BALANCING ACTS
Jeff Koons’ most recent work is called
“Popeye”. A sample on loan from the
Astrup Fearnley Museum, Dolphin is an
aluminium dolphin in the shape of a pool
toy. Hanging underneath is a pot rack full
of pots and pans. The effect of the piece is
immediate and startling, since the realism
of the pool toy calls the physical possibili-
ty of the whole sculpture into question.
How does the dolphin support the pots
and pans? For Koons, the focus is differ-
ent:
“To me, it’s like a maternal Venus.
That’s what it reminds me of. I mean it
has male and female aspects, but it’s like a
Venus of Willendorf or something.”
This interest in the balance between
opposites is a theme in many of his works,
like the wet/dry vacuum cleaners in his
work “The New”. For his latest design, he
plans to hang a seventy-five foot steam
engine from the top of a one-hundred and
fifty foot crane. Every day, the train will
start up for seven minutes and slow down
for another seven.
“With [Train], the whole world comes
into play – the whole world becomes very
feminine to this train hanging there.”
Train in the tunnel? At times it seems
like he’s playing with the type of imagery
that kids snigger about in the backs of
classrooms. It’s not what most of us have
come to expect from art, but according to
Koons, that’s exactly the point. Another
scale that concerns him is the balance of
power between the artist and the viewer.
He often appears to be on a crusade
against art that “presents itself as sophis-
ticated”, which he considers to be disem-
powering for the viewer.
Banging On
about Pots & Pans
JEFF KOONS WAS IN ICELAND FOR THE OPENING OF A RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION OF HIS WORKS, ON LOAN
FROM THE ASTRUP FEARNLEY MUSEUM OF MODERN ART IN OSLO. IN THE 1980’S, KOONS WAS THE POSTERBOY
FOR MODERN ART. HIS UNINHIBITED PUBLIC/PRIVATE LIFE WAS PLASTERED ALL OVER THE ART WORLD WITH
NAKED PICTURES OF HIM AND HIS EX-WIFE, THE HUNGARIAN-BORN PORN STAR CICCIOLINA. HIS METHODS AND
STYLE DREW COMPARISONS TO WARHOL. NOW HE’S REMARRIED AND RELAXING IN ICELAND AFTER A TRIP TO
WASHINGTON DC CAMPAIGNING FOR CHILDREN’S RIGHTS. FREQUENT FLYERS, MEET JEFF KOONS.
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