"April Fools has come and passed, / And we're the biggest fools at last."

This is how Jeff Koons explains his work of art, above:

This painting has a sexualized sense of nature. There's reference to nineteenth-century French painting, and Courbet, and to Louis Elishemius, a twentieth-century American who has absolutely influenced me over the last couple of years. There's also a reflective silver line drawing that's what I think would be Cy Twombley's take on Courbet's Origin of the World-- but a little more primal. The image itself comes from a close-up of a couple in the act of making love. It's a penetration. Laid on top of that, with the exact same cropping, is an image of a waterfall. So you have the greens and the nature colors and then in the center of the waterfall, you have white and the flesh of the couple. It makes reference to Marcel Duchamp's Etant Donnes. Sexuality is something that overtakes you. The gesture that you end up making in the world happens through instinct and all these desires for procreation. The most beautiful aesthetics, the greatest beauty, is the acceptance of nature and of how things function. When I say beauty, I mean just true reality and openness to everything.ILLUSTRATION ART: APRIL FOOL'S DAY

Posted by gerardvanderleun at April 1, 2015 10:35 AM