America Is Hard to See

May 1–Sept 27, 2015

All

20 / 23

Previous Next

Racing Thoughts

20

Glossy, stagy, and buzzing with the energy of the street and the media machine, a potent strain of art in the 1980s both reflected and challenged the ethos of the era under President Ronald Reagan. An economic upswing reversed the downturn of the 1970s, though its benefits were felt unequally during a period of political conservatism that valorized conspicuous consumption and Wall Street speculation. Children of the American baby boom, the artists who came of age at this time were the first generation reared on television and the impersonal affect of Pop art. Much of their work relied on their media savvy and new theories of representation that questioned originality and authenticity in a world awash with recycled images and styles.

The sculptures of Jeff Koons, Nam June Paik, and Charles Ray on view in this chapter all incorporate readymade products or the display devices that sell them, from mannequins to lighted cases. These artists conflated the allure of consumer products and art at a time when a booming market led paintings and sculptures to be increasingly seen as commodities, a point emphasized by Louise Lawler’s auction house photograph of Andy Warhol’s take on Marilyn Monroe. Other heroines star in Sarah Charlesworth’s and Dara Birnbaum’s appropriations from art history and television, respectively, while even Keith Haring’s and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s graffiti-tinged paintings play with branding and the zip and glow of the screen.

Below is a selection of works from this chapter.

Back

5 / 13

Previous Next

JEFF KOONS (B. 1955), NEW HOOVER CONVERTIBLES, GREEN, BLUE; NEW HOOVER CONVERTIBLES, GREEN, BLUE; DOUBLEDECKER, 1981-87

Jeff Koons, New Hoover Convertibles Green, Blue, New Hoover Convertibles Green, Blue Doubledecker, 1981–87

In America Is Hard to See

0:00

Jeff Koons, New Hoover Convertibles Green, Blue, New Hoover Convertibles Green, Blue Doubledecker, 1981–87

0:00

Narrator: Artist Jeff Koons.

Jeff Koons: My father was an interior decorator, so I grew up around objects being displayed. And I think that influenced me very much, and that's how I could envision and make a work like this.

I’ve always enjoyed display. And the New Hoover Convertibles, Doubledecker, it's just displaying itself. It’s like an individual displaying themselves. My work I believe is always directed toward what it means to be alive, what it means to be a human being in the world we live. And these are breathing machines. They are like individuals. And the first thing that we do when we come into this world to be alive is to breathe. I also enjoy the sexual quality of the work where some vacuum cleaners may read more feminine, others more masculine. I’ve created some double deckers, it's almost like a family unit, like a momma bear, a poppa bear and a baby bear.

I think the work has a form of visual beauty, but I think that the work’s really more about a philosophical and psychological ideal. These vacuums—these vacuum cleaners are like eternal virgins. They’re brand new. The object has its greatest amount of integrity before it ever participates in the world. Their cords are wrapped up just as they came out of the box. [T]hey've never been turned on. They’re never participated. 

I’ve always kind of enjoyed the idea of showing Hoover vacuum cleaners. When

I grew up there were still people coming door to door selling vacuum cleaners.

And I felt that I was kind of doing that with my artwork. I was a young artist saying, look here, I have something, and I'd like to participate. I'd like to get my foot in the door.

Jeff Koons’s series The New, which he began in 1980, captures the era’s fascination with conspicuous consumption. For New Hoover Convertibles, the artist sealed four never-used vacuum cleaners inside a fluorescent-lit vitrine. By placing it in a gallery setting, Koons encouraged the viewer to look at—not through—the transparent plastic conflating systems of commercial display with those of sculptural installation.

The unused vacuums are presented as pristine objects of desire, a quality exaggerated by their otherworldly glow. Yet almost paradoxically, the specimens in these hermetic chambers have inevitably grown dated, suggesting that the relentless quest for the “new and improved” in both art and commerce is inherently overshadowed by the threat of obsolescence.

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 648 works

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.