Jeff Koons: the pastor...or prophet of the art religion?

“The curator of the MCA exhibition, Francesco Bonami, presents his point in a eulogy: “If art were a religion, Jeff Koons would be its pastor, maybe even its prophet.” Perhaps Bonami echoes Koons’ credo: “Art is an opportunity for the artist to equalise the protagonist with the spectator.”

I suppose for art to have some sort of value in the art world, it has to have the ‘what the hell is that’ factor. This seems to coincide with the idea of binary logic, where this distinction is perhaps left up to the gatekeepers of the art world.With the principle of the ‘economics of disavowal’ it seems that value is created through denial of said value. A good example of Koons subscribing to this idea is a quote from an interview where he says, in response to the importance of his work being famous:

“There’s a difference between being famous and being significant. I’m interested in [my work's] significance — anything that can enrich our lives and make them vaster — but I’m really not interested in the idea of fame for fame’s sake."

If the art business succeeds by pretending to not to be doing what it is doing (and creating symbolic capital in the process) then it would make sense for artists to approach their work in such a manner.

He says in his ’86 interview, that the gallery is “a commercial world, and morality is based generally around economics, and that’s taking place in the art gallery. I like the tension of accessibility and inaccessibility, and the morality in the art gallery”.

His description of the tension and the exclusivity coincide in many ways with Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas of capital and the artworld as an ‘autonmous field’.

Q:"Is this huge operation that you run, with these dozens of artists producing your art, just the necessary means of making the work?"

A:“That’s right. I’m not involved in business art, that’s not my interest. My interest has always been in art. I remember when I was 16 and I turned on the radio and heard Led Zeppelin. That was when I came into contact with how powerful art can be. It was a very moving experience, and I thought, “I want part of this.”