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Lot Essay
'I've tried to make work that any viewer, no matter where they came from, would have to respond to, would have to say that on some level 'Yes, I like it.' If they couldn't do that, it would only be because they had been told they were not supposed to like it. Eventually they will be able to strip all that down and say 'You know, it's silly, but I like that piece. It's great'' (Koons, quoted in The Jeff Koons Handbook, ed. S. Coles & R. Violette, London, 1992, p. 112).
Executed in 1991, Small Vase of Flowers is an exuberant and explosive floral arrangement hewn from wood then painted. The precision of the sculptural effect combines with the polychrome of the plants to create an effect that is at once Rococo and cartoonish. There is a vivid intensity to the blooms, yet their representation here seems literal. There is an honesty and accuracy in their presentation here that fills the work with earnestness. In this way, Koons pushes his viewer beyond the bounds of instilled preconceptions of culture and taste to create something that is visually appealing in its own right. He is pushing the viewer through to a plateau on which thought is irrelevant, and instead pure visual enjoyment can rule.
Koons is an all-American, democratic artist, and his Small Vase of Flowers is a part of a wide campaign across his art that jars people out of adopting lazy and canonical concepts of taste. Nowadays, too many people are conditioned, and take certain edicts of the so-called tastemakers for granted. To see the world through this distorted sense of value takes away some of its shine, and Koons' art is designed to re-instill that luster: 'The artworld uses taste as a form of segregation. I was trying to make a body of work that anybody could enjoy' (Koons, quoted in A. Muthesius, Jeff Koons, Cologne, 1992, p. 30). Small Vase of Flowers is precisely that, an earnest and sumptuous sculpture of a colorful bouquet, ultimately democratic in providing enjoyment and pleasure. It is the image of a good home from a magazine, of the domestic perfection to which millions aspire. It is, therefore, by default and by popular demand, the embodiment of beauty.
The immediacy of Koons' visual language relies in part on a sexual, sensual aspect abundant even in Small Vase of Flowers, and indeed making it all the more logical for its inclusion in the Made in Heaven series. Speaking of the similar (and, despite the name, only slightly larger) Large Bunch of Flowers, made the same year, Koons explained that 'there are 140 flowers. They are very sexual and fertile, and at the same time they are 140 assholes' (Koons, quoted in Coles & Violette (ed.), op.cit., 1992, p. 126). On an almost subliminal level, this sexual content is part of Koons' visual ammunition, aimed at bypassing preconceptions and invoking an instant reaction. While the flowers are there for our visual delectation, he is well aware of, and manipulates, the sculpture's other meanings and implications. The sexuality of the blooms combines with the inference of memento mori inherent to the still life genre to create a many-layered, kaleidoscopic and ever-shifting multiplicity of meanings.
Koons extends these contradictions to the debate on the nature of the artist. In true Rococo tradition, Koons does not always construct his works, although he meticulously involves himself in every level of conception and construction. Instead, using so-called 'fabricators' - assistants and out-sourced craftsmen - Koons has his works executed according to his own exacting standards and specifications. In the case of his polychrome wood sculptures, he commissioned craftsmen in Oberammergau in Germany and Ortisei in Italy, two places where the Baroque tradition was alive and well. Rather than remove Koons from the process, using these specialists in fact adds an extra authenticity to Small Vase of Flowers. This is not a Duchampian readymade, although the ghost of Duchamp always hovers around Koons' work, as the work has been created, at least in its perfect, imagined state, by the artist beforehand. Koons is part of a grand centuries-old artistic tradition that predates the cult of the artist yet remains the urchin of Pop. He prefers to remain at a responsible distance from the construction of his work so that he is accountable for the ideas at their foundation. In this way, he avoids being weighed down by discussions of the finer points of execution. For Koons is interested in ideas, and wants the dialogue to be a dialogue of ideas. However much Koons dismisses art theory and taste as sophistry, this distance allows him to be a conceptual artist on an exceptionally pure level, and it is on this level especially that his integrity, and that of Small Vase of Flowers, lies.
Executed in 1991, Small Vase of Flowers is an exuberant and explosive floral arrangement hewn from wood then painted. The precision of the sculptural effect combines with the polychrome of the plants to create an effect that is at once Rococo and cartoonish. There is a vivid intensity to the blooms, yet their representation here seems literal. There is an honesty and accuracy in their presentation here that fills the work with earnestness. In this way, Koons pushes his viewer beyond the bounds of instilled preconceptions of culture and taste to create something that is visually appealing in its own right. He is pushing the viewer through to a plateau on which thought is irrelevant, and instead pure visual enjoyment can rule.
Koons is an all-American, democratic artist, and his Small Vase of Flowers is a part of a wide campaign across his art that jars people out of adopting lazy and canonical concepts of taste. Nowadays, too many people are conditioned, and take certain edicts of the so-called tastemakers for granted. To see the world through this distorted sense of value takes away some of its shine, and Koons' art is designed to re-instill that luster: 'The artworld uses taste as a form of segregation. I was trying to make a body of work that anybody could enjoy' (Koons, quoted in A. Muthesius, Jeff Koons, Cologne, 1992, p. 30). Small Vase of Flowers is precisely that, an earnest and sumptuous sculpture of a colorful bouquet, ultimately democratic in providing enjoyment and pleasure. It is the image of a good home from a magazine, of the domestic perfection to which millions aspire. It is, therefore, by default and by popular demand, the embodiment of beauty.
The immediacy of Koons' visual language relies in part on a sexual, sensual aspect abundant even in Small Vase of Flowers, and indeed making it all the more logical for its inclusion in the Made in Heaven series. Speaking of the similar (and, despite the name, only slightly larger) Large Bunch of Flowers, made the same year, Koons explained that 'there are 140 flowers. They are very sexual and fertile, and at the same time they are 140 assholes' (Koons, quoted in Coles & Violette (ed.), op.cit., 1992, p. 126). On an almost subliminal level, this sexual content is part of Koons' visual ammunition, aimed at bypassing preconceptions and invoking an instant reaction. While the flowers are there for our visual delectation, he is well aware of, and manipulates, the sculpture's other meanings and implications. The sexuality of the blooms combines with the inference of memento mori inherent to the still life genre to create a many-layered, kaleidoscopic and ever-shifting multiplicity of meanings.
Koons extends these contradictions to the debate on the nature of the artist. In true Rococo tradition, Koons does not always construct his works, although he meticulously involves himself in every level of conception and construction. Instead, using so-called 'fabricators' - assistants and out-sourced craftsmen - Koons has his works executed according to his own exacting standards and specifications. In the case of his polychrome wood sculptures, he commissioned craftsmen in Oberammergau in Germany and Ortisei in Italy, two places where the Baroque tradition was alive and well. Rather than remove Koons from the process, using these specialists in fact adds an extra authenticity to Small Vase of Flowers. This is not a Duchampian readymade, although the ghost of Duchamp always hovers around Koons' work, as the work has been created, at least in its perfect, imagined state, by the artist beforehand. Koons is part of a grand centuries-old artistic tradition that predates the cult of the artist yet remains the urchin of Pop. He prefers to remain at a responsible distance from the construction of his work so that he is accountable for the ideas at their foundation. In this way, he avoids being weighed down by discussions of the finer points of execution. For Koons is interested in ideas, and wants the dialogue to be a dialogue of ideas. However much Koons dismisses art theory and taste as sophistry, this distance allows him to be a conceptual artist on an exceptionally pure level, and it is on this level especially that his integrity, and that of Small Vase of Flowers, lies.