Alan Jacobs


#
We have made him. To actually, truly believe in the advertisements that shape our culture—to let them penetrate one’s soul—is to become Jeff Koons. He believed what was said about vacuums and, and so he puts them in hermetically sealed shrines, turning them into the hallowed products their advertisements claim them to be. Koons never stopped being an investor, he just switched to a market that could survive the crash (one of his balloon dogs went for $58.4 million last year). Archaeologists of the future will excavate these dogs and assume we worshipped them, and maybe we do. A god who can be contorted into any shape of our choosing, and once contorted, becomes stainless steel—an idol more rigid and inflexible in its demand we seek sexual fulfillment than the Decalogue ever was. Koons is a Biblical sculptor—he is Aaron, and these are our golden calves. His retroactive justifications are completely absurd. The audio guide compares his Michael Jackson and Bubbles to Michelangelo. We get the pietàs we deserve.