Jeff Koons: A Retrospective | Art & Artists

While searching for commercial products to incorporate into his art, Koons tirelessly perused the bins of the discount shops that extended across Fourteenth Street, Broadway, and New York’s Lower East Side. In so doing, he developed a connoisseur’s eye for the pleasures to be found in cheap toys and tchotchkes. Perhaps the most enduring of the products he encountered at this time were inflatable vinyl toys. Apart from their tactile surfaces and bright colors, Koons found a deeper message running through these objects—one that spoke to nothing less than mortality. He has said, “I think of the inflatables as anthropomorphic, we are ourselves inflatables, we take a breath, we expand, we contract, our last breath in life, our deflation.” With these words in mind, the optimism of his chosen products are also haunted by the specter of death.

With their colorful lights and floating appliances, <i>Pre-New</i> wall reliefs like this one at first appear like props from a science-fiction film. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that they feature prosaic household products, which Koons has lent a glamorous aura. Drawing together Pop art’s interest in the everyday and Surrealism’s involvement with the mysterious, these sculptures elevate the humble servants of the home to the point of becoming devotional icons. Yet while making these reliefs, the artist still feared he was not respectful enough of his subjects and that he was violating their “integrity” by gluing and bolting them to their supports. These sculptures became known as <i>Pre-New</i> because they preceded <i>The New</i>. In that series, Koons discovered ways to present his chosen appliances while leaving them entirely inviolate, thereby stressing the inherent perfection of his readymade sources.