Now, what of the critical reaction over the years?  Not quite knowing how to respond to the outrageousness and seeming radicalism of Koons’ art in the early days many critics hedged their bets against being perceived as un-hip.  Roberta Smith for example, once compared Koons’ oversized stainless steel ‘Rabbit’ to a Brancusi sculpture.  Overreaching for connections for the art clearly extended beyond the artist.  For his part Thomkins labels anyone who didn’t get it (my interpretation: that didn’t ‘go along to get along’) with Koons’ agenda, as ‘mossback Modernists’.  I guess that includes me and although I’ll accept the mossback part I reject Thomkins simple division of the contemporary art world into Modernists and Post-Modernists (fodder for another essay). But finally with Made in Heaven all bets were off and the emperor artist was found to have no clothes after all.

There has always been a struggle to comprehend Koons. Thomkins does his level best to keep up with the artist’s narrative but concedes that not even irony, the terra ferma of Pop Art (and the best pigeonhole fit for Koons), suffices to explain the work.  Koons, he reports, seems to genuinely believe the sometimes ridiculous but often questionable claims and tenuous connections he makes for his work.  In this he reminds me of our current President as possessing a self-deluded intellectual faculty.  I find both to be shallow  men who, by their own definition, have ‘grand’ ideas they tirelessly promote yet which are nearly devoid of any deeply thoughtful content.  Additionally both are proud of a willful ignorance regarding their corresponding areas of expertise while spending a great deal of ‘capital’ in pursuit of their respective agendas.  (To Koons credit though, he does not get peopled killed for his).

Koons’ artist heroes, not surprisingly, include Duchamp, Dali and Warhol. With the exception of Duchamp he is in good company with the other two as strong on narcissism and self-promotion but weak on visual content (though less so with Dali).  One artist missing is Christo which is surprising in that I find an affinity between them.  Christo is yet another master of self-promotion with a talent for raising vast sums of money to blow on oversized projects that create a large sensation.  The effect, as I say, is big but hardly what I would call art.  Christo and Koons, on a

larger scale of course, remind me of a roadside attraction you might find in the middle of Kansas - something like the worlds largest ball of string.  It’s briefly interesting and relieves the boredom of a cross-country trip for awhile but then is easily forgotten.  Having said that I will at least give Christo the benefit of having put a bit more thought into what he does.

I’ve eventually come to realize that Jeff Koons is no longer an irritant for me but finally just a ‘straw man’ in that what he does and what he represents is really innocuous.  While he commands a presence among certain nitwit collectors, dealers and critics, my response these days is, so what?  If they are buying (literally and figuratively) into all of this and calling it art, well, God bless them and their purchases. It’s certainly not enough for an old mossback like me.  But it also doesn’t matter that Koons raises and loses a lot of money for art projects that are ultimately inconsequential. In the end what he does is of fleeting interest and has nothing to do with art.  I think Koons had his moment when he grabbed the attention of a bored art world a little over a decade ago.  But now? Well after some time and reflection banality, as it turns out, is just that - banal; and God knows we already live in a contemporary culture rampant with it.

One of the most pleasant surprises that sometimes occur as part of reviewing shows is to be on my way to check out one show only to stumble onto another one that is much better.  So it was with this exhibition.  This work channels a period of abstract painting that occurred in the 30s and 40s which has been underserved for attention in my opinion (but which this gallery is dedicated to).  I’m thinking of artists like Arthur Dove, John Marin and Milton Avery. Gregory Amenoff clearly has his own solidly defined style but in his perfection of a cross-over abstract/landscape subject matter and dramatic approach, his sensibility has much in common with those other artists.   There may be additional, less direct comparisons too such as an oblique connection to El Greco, but enough comparisons.