Recontextualizing Banal Objects: Jeff Koons

Oxford art online stated that in the1980s Jeff Koons won international recognition as a radical exponent of an NEO– GEO. Artsy states that “Jeff Koons plays with ideas of taste, pleasure, celebrity and commerce.” Koons commented that his art and personal life is based in advertisement and media completely. He states that he has always loved

Arts sole purpose is to evoke an emotion out of its audience and influence them as well. Whether art makes you feel euphoric or sad, it resonates within every individual differently. In this day in age, artists utilize the internet as a method of sharing their work freely with others. According to Lethem, “The American commons include tangible assets such as public for public assets such as public forests and minerals, intangible wealth such as copyrights and patents, critical infrastructures such as the Internet and government research , and cultural resources such as the broadcast airwaves and public spaces. They include resources we’ve paid for as taxpayers and inherited from previous generations” (222). This suggests the Internet is a creative resource that is invaluable to the art community; however, it should be used with caution. The internet is not a resource that can be owned or privatized, which is why individuals can be exposed to anything at any time. On the internet, many images pop up quite frequently and they evoke little to no emotion from those who see it, because they have seen it a numerous amount of times. This is unfortunate, because the quality of one’s work is being diminished if people have become indifferent towards it. Nelson argues that, “But there are also perils. And one is that in cultural moment defined (by some, for some) by image flow, the question of what one should look at, along with attendant inquiries into nature and effect of images blowing by, has creepy way of overtaking almost all other questions” (304). This infers that image flow is something that alters how individuals are affected by art and the feelings one should have toward it. Although technology has been beneficial to the art community, image flow continues to damage the effect that art is intended to have. Seeing

In the 1980’s the art world was gifted with the artist Jean michel basquiat. Basquiat, a man who lived two contrasting lives as street artist and “fine artist” in the art punk movement of the 1980’s. His work as a street artist was full of poetic and provocative messages painted in the streets of Manhattan New York, and his work as a “fine artist” did the same on gigantic canvases with looming figures in bold colours. Regardless of this dichotomy, his work in both of these practices has the ability to bring light to issues he and many others were facing and are still facing now. In particular, Basquiat’s work brought light to his personal experience with racism and struggle with otherness in and outside of the brutal art world. The next paragraphs will discuss how Jean Michel Basquiat delt and fought the oppressive systems of his time through his art.

Jeffery “Jeff” Koons, born an American in York, Pennsylvania on January 21, 1955. As a teenager, Koons admired Salvador Dali’s art work so much that he would visit him in New York at the St. Regis Hotel. Later in his college years, Koons met artist Ed Paschke who became a major influence on him and helped be Paschke’s assistant in his art studio. Koons studied Painting at the School of Art Institute of Chicago and at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1976. Koons works and lives in New York City.

"Koons, Jeff." Art Full Text Biographies. Publisher of Original Publication: The H.W. Wilson Company, 2009. Web. 12 Oct. 2012.

Attention Getter: The American culture is so engulfed into consumerism that we take every day items and objects for granted we don 't necessarily realize the impact and importance to have on our life and how we live vicariously through them. Today I 'm going to talk about one man that took these concepts into his artistic ability and thereby created a whole new culture in what we see is art today. This man who is considered one of the fathers of pop art goes by the name of Andy Warhol.

An artwork is often an artist’s subjective expression of their context. The ideology of artists, their perceptions of their contexts and the materials available to them play a significant role in the creation of their artworks. However, an artist’s intentions can be misinterpreted or disregarded by their audience, often sparking fervent discussion within the art world. Through the artists Ai Weiwei and Marcel Duchamp, we can clearly see how personal reactions to an environment shape the intent of artworks. Additionally, from their audiences’

Andy Warhol, with his revolutionary idea of pop art, is arguably one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Warhol’s unique view of the world and how he developed his definition of art is what changed the world. The creativity that Andy Warhol displayed was due to him having such a strange sense for obscure and fashionable things. Even his appearance, which consisted of his classical silver wig, clearly shows that he is no ordinary person, but instead that he is a cool, classical person, who will never be out of style. His ability to influence countless celebrities, all within different forms of art, with his fame made him into an unbelievably important impresario. Andy Warhol had plenty of revolutionary pieces, including his Campbell's soup, and Marilyn's, but these pieces are hardly what made him such a special and unique person. Helping to influence and promote many new and upcoming people such as Jean Michel Basquiat, and the Velvet Underground, he created a foundation for modern art that has continued to

Jean-Michel Basquiat emerged from the punk scene in New York as a street-smart graffiti artist. He successfully crossed over his downtown origins to the international art gallery circuit. Basquiat’s work is one of the few examples of how an early 1980’s American graffiti-based could become a fully recognized artist. Despite his work’s unstudied appearance, Basquiat very skillfully and purposefully brought together in his art a host of disparate traditions, practices and styles to create a unique kind of visual collage. His work is an example of how American artists of the 1980’s could reintroduce the human figure in their work after the wide success of minimalism and conceptualism.

Art is not always pleasant, but neither is society. Art and society have a reflective relationship with one another. During social, religious, and political controversy, artists such as Frida Kahlo incorporated imagery into their portraits of society which are often disturbing to the viewer. The role of an artist often includes acting as a social critic, to show us aspects of our cultural landscape that are unpleasant. In this manner, the art acts as a commentary on the negative aspects of Western civilisation. During the thirties and forties, Kahlo incorporated the hidden realities of economic and social depression into her works.

Art has been a popular medium for public outcry, change and propaganda regarding issues relevant to war and suffering for hundreds of years. German expressionist Kathe Kollwitz and Spanish cubist Pablo Picasso are two artists who through their artwork have engaged with mass audiences and conveyed their own personal ideologies, emotions and beliefs on issues relevant to their world.

Andy Warhol being not simply a Pop artist, but an American artist who was known as the master of Pop Art, and about two of Warhol’s most famous paintings; Coca-Cola and Campbell’s Soup Cans. Andy Warhol was an artist and filmmaker, an initiator for the Pop Art movement in the 1960s. Warhol used mass production techniques to elevate art into the supposed unoriginality of the commercial culture of the United States. Warhol’s early drawings frequently recalls the Anglo-Saxon tradition of nonsense humor, a characteristically childlike exuberance, and the fact that Warhol was successfully earning a living in the advertising industry at the time was sufficient for many to dismiss his entire artistic output during this period as “commercial art”. Fifty years ago, Pop art captured the spirit of Warhol’s young art, but that basic structure has been (to most people) a revealing profitless movement for years. Pop art was a 1960s movement that focused on everyday objects, comic books and mediated images — now seems quaint and playful, but not Warhol. In the first part of Andy Warhol’s career he was an iconoclast, in the second, the artist as businessman. In 1960 Warhol’s graphic works underwent a fundamental change in terms of subject matter, accompanied at about the same time by a change in technique. Warhol’s graphic work covers areas not normally associated with the art of the twentieth century, and which might even be considered unique. In Andy Warhol’s paintings and prints of

Even in his very early year of life, Andy Warhol knew that he wanted to grow up and be a part of the artistic world. Throughout his life, his dreams and aspirations were focused on creating art. His aspirations were so obvious in fact, that his father was able to recognize his talents and begin saving money for him to receive a college education. This education was relatively rare during the 1940’s, and therefore set him apart from many other artists of the time. Throughout his later life, Warhol was able to represent himself as an artist who did not conform to the norms of society at the time. His creative use of Pop Art is something that is still very relevant even in today’s society.

Anderson was interested in the development of the artist- type, the inner desires of repressed people, the failure of people to communicate their true selves; the way conventions and tradition have twisted and distorted the individual (Doneskey 1-3).

Art is a catalyst of change. It can confront both social and political issues as well as providing people with a creative outlet in which they can express their innermost thoughts and feelings - but what effect can art have on our society as a whole? Artists today have the unique ability to connect with people in a creative, innovative way that they can understand and interpret themselves. With this ability, artists are able to express their own views as well as influencing the views of others. Art is an immense part of our world – so much so that we barely even consider its impact upon us – but just how significant is the work of artists in our modern day society?