by Lis Bensley
Jeff Koons has been called the master of kitsch, a hugely successful factory artist who plays on the banal. He draws high praise for his ingenuity and rancor for his market tyranny. Enough to curl lips? For many, yes. Especially those horrified at his most current project on the moon. Enough resentment to destroy his work? Maybe to those with a special vendetta against glorified kitsch and gender imbalances in the art world.
Conceptual artist Kathy Aoki straddles the line. In her wildly clever installation Koons Ruins: Discovery Zone at West Valley College Art Gallery, Aoki has constructed a show depicting the antics of the fictional art collector Dorothy Vadas James, who was so disgusted by Koons that she devoted her life to buying, then destroying as much of his work as she could. Part multimedia, part conceptual, part immersive, part theatrical and delightfully entertaining, this exhibition keenly examines commercialism and the hypocrisy of the male-dominated art world.
The show takes the form of a futuristic visitor’s center, complete with a gift shop (Koons T-shirts, postcards and buttons) and a walk-through installation depicting James’s estate replete with documentation of her Koons carnage. James, modeled loosely after a colleague of Aoki’s, grew up in Hungary, was inspired by her great-grandmother’s sharp eye for art and studied art and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. After working as a financier, James amassed enough of a fortune to pursue her life’s dream and remove offensive Koons sculptures from the public eye.
Though James forbid photographs of her estate, she did create a retreat where artists could depict renditions of specific sculptures that had been semi-interned and degraded by chemicals. This odd stipulation allows Aoki, who created all the work in the show, to exhibit her formidable skills as a printmaker, digital and video artist, sculptor, model-maker and fiction writer. She even took a course in oil painting so that she could create portraits of James modeled after the work of Jenny Saville and James’ inspirational great-grandmother, Alexandra James.
Memorable pieces abound. Buried Balloon Dog (2060 CE), an intaglio print with watercolor, is a sumptuous rendering by an anonymous artist who visited the estate in 2060. Fun detail: said artist “was subsequently banned from the estate because of unauthorized camera use.” Supposedly acquired from an auction at Christie’s when art collector Dakis Joannou sold off Koons’s work after a heated argument with the artist, Balloon Dog (Red) is barely discernible, lying half-buried under overgrown bushes.
Three smart video installations, entitled Koons Ruin Animations (2086 CE), utilize risograph animation to depict Koons’ work imprisoned on the estate. Sensuous digital prints, originating from tablet drawings, are peppered through the show and resemble rich, layered archival photographs.
Buried Bourgeois Bust (2078 CE), records a half-buried work from Koons’ Made in Heaven, series. This was the first sculpture to enrage James. Using Italian porn star Ilona Staller (aka La Cicciolina), who later married him, Koons depicted a naked couple cavorting provocatively in explicit poses that referenced work by old masters, such as Edouard Manet, fodder for James’ outrage at Koons’ exploitation of women.
This same outrage also appears in Aoki’s immersive wood panels that allow viewers to rate their indignation. Antiquity Drawing recreates Koons’ crude vaginal sketch that brings to mind Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde (1866). Judge for yourself, the panel invites, then flip open the top to read James’ reaction where she calls Koons’ objectification of the female form “a juvenile joke.” Another Rate Your Indignation panel, Women in the Tub, copied from a postcard, depicts a near-headless woman clutching her breasts as a semi-submerged snorkeler teases her mysteriously under the water. One can only imagine James cringing in horror.
A whimsical timeline pits Koons’ life against James’. Koons was born in 1955, James in 1957. Both attended art school. In 2054 Koons unsuccessfully attempts to sue James for damaging his work. In a coy play on Guilty, the opulent yacht that Dakis Joannou commissioned Koons to paint in slick geometric forms, Aoki notes that Koons passes away in 2054 “on a yacht of his own design.”
In the spirit of James, Aoki created a wall panel bio on Koons with commentary on his artistic origins. True: At a young age, Koons painted copies of master paintings that his interior designer father hung in the shop window. Commentary about James’ reaction: “Koons moved on to create works in poor taste intended to shock.” True: “It should be noted that Jeff did not actually create any of these works but hired a specialized team to produce the work for him.”
James, too, hired a specialized team. In her case, a group of scientists from Germany initially developed “the proprietary coatings used by Koons to create his shiny surfaces.” James convinced these scientists to defect and come to her estate, where she had built a chemical lab. There, the scientists were tasked with developing degradation chemicals that would not harm the environment.
A work celebrating the chemicals, Various Chemical Acids (2020 CE), divulges the “recipes” of the chemical compositions the teams deployed. James’ impatience with their process is documented in an email Aoki concocted, sent to James by the scientists working on her estate. Apparently, James visited the lab too often. “We in the lab share your disgust,” the email reads, adding a plea to stop visiting so frequently. “We’re working as quickly as safe practices allow.”
Another fun detail, the Save the Public Eye Foundation, set up by James to manage the estate after her death, sponsored a middle school science camp from 2063-2074 so students could learn about acids and environmental safety. One work they clearly studied was Balloon Flower that James buried in a subterranean ceramic pit intended to prevent destructive chemicals from leaking into the soil. This piece was documented, as were the others, by Anonymous in Buried Balloon Flowers (2078 CE), another exquisite print.
No matter one’s opinion about Jeff Koons, the ingenuity and craftsmanship of this show cannot help but delight viewers. Koons Ruins: Discovery Zone is so well executed and utterly convincing that even Koons might smile.
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Kathy Aoki: “Koons Ruins: Discovery Zone” at West Valley College Art Gallery through April 4, 2024. Tues and Thurs 2-5pm, Wed and Fri 10-2pm, Sunday 1-4pm.
About the author: Lis Bensley is an award-winning author of the novel The Glimpse about artists of the Abstract Expressionist era. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, The New Mexican, ArtNews, Elle Decor, Fine Cooking and others. She lives in Santa Cruz, CA.
