Wolfman (Close-up)

Wolfman, an iconic work from Jeff Koons' Made in Heaven series is a slightly larger than life sized depiction of the artist and his then wife, the Italian porn star Cicciolina, engaged in the climax of a sexual narrative. The physicality of the bodies is nearly sculptural. They appear to have been inserted, mid-act, into a ready-made pornography film set. The background is fantastically ordinary-- a barren tree in front of a full moon with a vaguely dark sky behind. The title, Wolfman, conjures up an uber-masculine force howling at the moon. Referencing Romanticism classics such as Borcher and Fragonard, Wolfman illustrates how traditional ideas of romance have been dependent on setting and context.
Made in Heaven follows the series entitled Luxury and Degredation, and pornography seems to be the logical sequence to the Koonsian exploration of human desires, aspirations feelings of guilt and illusions. With its banal, easy to ignore setting and its focus in high pleasure, Wolfman in particular makes a participant of the viewer, as pornography nearly requires an outside viewer to be classified as such. Perhaps tamer and even more tender than others from the series, Koons' Wolfman reminds us that the boundaries between what is considered pornography versus the mere rendering of a sexual act are wholly subjective. The artist and Cicciolina are the archetype for all our fantasies.