There’s a telling moment early on in Alison Chernick’s 2004 film The Jeff Koons Show, now available on DVD from Microcinema. Jeff Koons muses on his idyllic childhood and how he sold candy and gift wrap door to door as a very young boy. Whenever someone opened their door to the ever-smiling, ever-earnest Koons, he admits, he became whatever they wanted him to be. Koons the artist remains the eternal salesman, pitching a brand of art that seems to many to be big on talk and low on substance. It’s the dearth of this salesman’s art that Chernick’s documentary dances around, leaving it to us to decide whether we buy Koons’ message of art for the masses through kitsch and almost convulsively bad taste. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Dearth of a Salesman."
[Many thanks to Microcinema for providing me with a review copy of The Jeff Koons Show.]
