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sanpaku_backupFrom today's Times:
"That sense of something at once utterly obvious and mysteriously fraught with meaning animates the pivotal work in Mr. Koons's career: "Rabbit," from 1986. Cast in mirror-bright stainless steel, an inflated cartoon bunny becomes a gleaming wedding of high and low. The futurist, utopian aspirations of modernism invoked by the polished Brancusian forms merge with the crass commercialism of the cheap toy, whose seams, wrinkles and inflation nozzle remain evident.
But Mr. Koons's bunny also has a touching personal intimacy. In its childlike vulnerability, innocence and eagerness to please, it exudes a feeling of new possibility and elicits a nurturing response. That the rabbit is a symbol of birth and resurrection is not incidental.
The bunny's promise came to fruition in the works that made up an unforgettable 1988 exhibition that unleashed a perfect storm of publicity, critical debate and audience excitement and consternation. Here the eight hilarious, oversize tchotchkes may still be viewed as subversive mock commodities, satirizing the infantilism and banality of contemporary imagination. But the sensuous fabrication in ceramic or wood by Italian artisans gives them a powerful psychological impact, making them more than just conceptual stunts.
The sexy, topless blonde embracing the sad-eyed Pink Panther is an erotic image of Oedipal yearning; Michael Jackson, bigger than life in his gold suit, holding his chimp Bubbles, also in a gold suit, radiates a numinous aura. He is a young god — a troubled young god, we know now."
"That sense of something at once utterly obvious and mysteriously fraught with meaning animates the pivotal work in Mr. Koons's career: "Rabbit," from 1986. Cast in mirror-bright stainless steel, an inflated cartoon bunny becomes a gleaming wedding of high and low. The futurist, utopian aspirations of modernism invoked by the polished Brancusian forms merge with the crass commercialism of the cheap toy, whose seams, wrinkles and inflation nozzle remain evident.
But Mr. Koons's bunny also has a touching personal intimacy. In its childlike vulnerability, innocence and eagerness to please, it exudes a feeling of new possibility and elicits a nurturing response. That the rabbit is a symbol of birth and resurrection is not incidental.
The bunny's promise came to fruition in the works that made up an unforgettable 1988 exhibition that unleashed a perfect storm of publicity, critical debate and audience excitement and consternation. Here the eight hilarious, oversize tchotchkes may still be viewed as subversive mock commodities, satirizing the infantilism and banality of contemporary imagination. But the sensuous fabrication in ceramic or wood by Italian artisans gives them a powerful psychological impact, making them more than just conceptual stunts.
The sexy, topless blonde embracing the sad-eyed Pink Panther is an erotic image of Oedipal yearning; Michael Jackson, bigger than life in his gold suit, holding his chimp Bubbles, also in a gold suit, radiates a numinous aura. He is a young god — a troubled young god, we know now."
