Jeff Koons: A Retrospective

With Hulk Elvis, Koons extended and complicated his renewed interest in the readymade, employing cutting-edge technologies to further blur the distinction between real things and their copies. To create the sculptures in this series, Koons has pioneered methods for capturing source data and fabricating objects that rival the most advanced capabilities of science and manufacturing. This exactitude contributes to the “strong, heroic” quality Koons sought in Hulk Elvis (which takes its name from the cartoon antihero and the virile pop star). The layered compositions of Koons’s canvases—with a grinning monkey, an erotic scene from a Japanese print, and a linear depiction of a horse-drawn carriage confronting a train—suggest sexual union, the clash of opposing worlds, permanence and evanescence, and a sense of power and confidence made all the more compelling by the threat of obsolescence and deflation.