camminando | Jeff Koons Retrospective: The Art of Banality (and Making Money with Banality)

Jeff Koons is definitely one of the greatest geniuses in one of the talents the majority of us artists are devoid of: making money with art. The name itself of his one of his sculpture series "banalities" well render the content of his art.

Koons is not the first in the art world to use everyday objects and commodities as artwork. Andy Warhol himself gained fame and money from similar gestures, drawing art content from celebrities photos, everyday consumption objects. And there are even much earlier examples with dadaists or Marcel Duchamp "Readymades" which include common objects such as urinals or bicycle wheels.
Koons also shares with the Warhol's "Factory" the production of the "artwork" by others: it is a practice in a certain way opposite  making the art object mass production.
Nevertheless I enjoyed strolling through this larger than life retrospective at the Whitney Museum (closing this week), a playful and engaging example of how art can be made of everyday life objects.

The other Jeff Koons extravaganza was "Split-Rocker" at the Rockefeller Center, the 37-foot tall planted "puppies" which was on view until September 18.

Vernissages NYC | Warhol's Andys @ Ronald Feldman Fine Arts

Ronald Feldman Fine Arts presents a large selection of Andy Warhol self-portraits from 1966 to 1982 realized in many different media. From the gallery press release.

" Self-portraits occupied a central position in Warhol's entire body of work and were important in the creation of his public persona. Controlling his own image, Warhol played with the art of disguise and deception, seemingly telling us all, yet revealing very little. There are many Andys, but Warhol remains substantially unknowable.

The exhibition includes several variations of Warhol's depiction of himself as "The Shadow", the mysterious radio character from the 1930s through the 1950s, as part of the 1981 Myths series. . ....

Two silkscreen self-portraits from the '60s represent the young Warhol, already a Pop icon and part of the culture he celebrated. Larger-than-life self-portraits from 1977, nine years after he was shot, combine different poses with silkscreen effects. A mock strangulation conflates a possibly spontaneous moment with the theme of sudden death. In a 1982 unique print, derived from a photograph to promote his modeling career, Warhol stares directly at the viewer as do many of his celebrity portrait subjects.

Photographs by Christopher Makos include Altered Image in which Warhol, inspired by Man Ray's portrait of Duchamp, role-plays in drag and Andy Warhol Modeling Composite that depicts practice poses and commissioned assignments. Warhol's appearances on TV are documented with clips from The Love Boat, Saturday Night live, and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes, his self-produced cable show. Gerard Malanga's film, Portraits of the Artist as a Young Man, 1964-65, mimics the pace of Andy's films and screen tests, a contrast to a 1987 video of Warhol walking a fashion runway, his last public appearance a few days before he died."

Warhol's Andys

November 5 - December 23

RONALD FELDMAN FINE ARTS

31 Mercer Street

Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00AM - 6:00PM

Vernissages | NYC, Chelsea June 24

Summer solstice (almost) evening in Chelsea, and a few interesting shows before the NYC art summer vacation..

Strolling on the High Line

Jack Pierson opening (and after party) at Bortolami

Reconstruction of Andy Warhol's Rain Machine at Nicholas Robinson

"Theatrical Properties" at Bitform

Christian Marclay at Paula Cooper

Finally on my way back home along the Hudson waterfront, a final memorized glimpse of the sky as the sun as already disappeared for a while behind New Jersey skylines. My feet are blistery as my phone tells me that today I walked almost 12 miles....Good night New York!