Koons’s “Inflatable Flower and Bunny (Tall White, Pink Bunny),” 1979. BROAD ART FOUNDATION, SANTA MONICA

Because we are not experts in any sense of the subject, contemporary art is only rarely a topic of interest on this blog. But as readers of media far and wide related to the cultures we operate in, we cannot help noticing what experts say about it. We have once or twice linked out to articles that reflect our concern about the overwhelming sense of art and commerce overlapping more than seems right. Jeff Koons, on show in Paris currently, offers an other prime example of our concern.  A review of the New York retrospective of Koons earlier this year had this respectful insight:

…Koons’s smiley mien and a line of patter that is part huckster and part self-esteem guru—“Everybody’s cultural history is perfect”—call to mind Degas’s remark to Whistler: “You behave as though you had no talent.” But Koons has no end of talent and, within his range, mastery, marked by an obsessive perfectionism, and wound tightly around some core emotion, perhaps rage, which impels and concentrates his ambition. It’s really the quality of his work, interlocking with economic and social trends, that makes him the signal artist of today’s world. If you don’t like that, take it up with the world…

In the Financial Times review of the Paris show, this particular question catches our attention:

…Did Koons learn, from a spell working as a Wall Street trader, to unfold these limited-edition trinkets as the latest commodities, escalating costs for the deluxe fabrication with each series like so many speculative ventures?…

Not because we have anything against traders, but because the art-as commodity concern is better understood with this detail of the artist’s life. Not understood completely, because we do not know enough about Koons, but the question seems pointed in the right direction. Another gem of an observation:

…“He says, if you’re critical, you’re already out of the game,” announced Koons’s dealer David Zwirner when these repetitive follies launched last year. Dollar power goes some way to explaining why Koons’s smooth sales-speak – “when people make judgments, they close all the possibility around them” – is not seen for what it is: a reversal of the spirit of intellectual openness that has allowed art to flourish since the Enlightenment. And of course it is obvious why Koons, like any entrepreneur boasting a luxury monopoly, directs his factory to produce a controlled stream of high-end, high-tech baubles. Less obvious is why this trading currency for the super-rich should interest the rest of us, or why museums and critics are endorsing it…

Read the whole review here.