JEFF KOONS’S GAZING BALL

Text topic: Aesthetics Today

Text author: Драган Ћаловић

The text analyses the artistic approach in Jeff Koons’s Gazing Ball. This art series consists mainly of famous artwork reproductions joined by lapis lazuli balls of highly reflective surfaces. Relying on the strategy of appropriation, Koons is pulling a line that connects several centuries of development of the West European art. The selection of artworks, which are reproduced and then exposed, is the result of a strategic decision, giving Koons the status of an artist-curator. By applying appropriation in Gazing Ball series, Jeff Koons has expressed his attitudes towards artistic heritage on several levels. Nothing remains spared, from an institutionalized art history, through dominant interpretative frameworks and understanding of the original – copy relationship, to the very experience of the artwork itself. Although Koons avoids an activist position, his work do not leave the observer indifferent. It invites him/her to re-examine his or her attitude towards artistic heritage.