Jeff Koons in Chicago

I am terribly and wonderfully excited to be attending the Jeff Koons exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago very soon. Just as I love the readymades of Marcel DuChamp, I love Jeff Koons’ work. But these loves are on different levels. DuChamp gives me a feeling of emptiness and a sad emotion. My responses to DuChamp are very much clawing up from my gut whereas the work of Koons give me the odd feelings of utter light, a lightness of being, laying out color almost akin to the stark image on a television. Koons use of color is always the most amazing and sometimes startling moment in seeing his work. This trip to MCA in Chicago will be my first up close and personal relationship to his work. Up until now, I have only seen his work by diving into books, articles, and his website http://www.jeffkoons.com.

Koons’ work is technicolor. Often seeing his workfeels like my first time even seeing color. His inflatables are veritable bombs of color, but so are his readymades. His newest work with Hoover vacuum cleaners intrigues me in so many varieties of ways — he manages to get an emotional reaction from me as a viewer with a carpet shampooer, even a deep fryer. His use of fluorescent lighting in these works give it this Montgomery Ward endcap display quality that is oddly and wholly comforting to a 21st Century American.

I am as excited as a bride on her wedding day about finally meeting Koons’ work face to face. I will post my post-exhibit comments here … of course.