画册系列封面之一

镜头前的Jeff Koons

　　近日，纽约高古轩画廊(Gagosian Gallery)为其代理艺术家Jeff Koons （杰夫·昆斯）出版了一套新的画册。画册出版后，12月17日晚上，杰夫·昆斯在高古轩画廊的书店里签名售书。

　　这套新的画册以杰夫·昆斯Hulk Elvis（《巨人猫王》）作品系列的名称命名，除收录他的Hulk系列油画作品外，还添加了充气得膨胀的猩猩、艺伎、大鸟、自由钟、蒸汽发动机、马车等各种的形象。杰夫·昆斯所绘制的这些形象一般都是体型巨大、色彩绚丽，个个看起来都是能量十足；抽象元素的叠加使得画面具有一种神秘感，但明快的手法又让画面具有一种亲切感。

　　此外，《Artforum》资深编辑Scott Rothkopf（斯科特•罗斯科普夫）的评论文章，以及Hans Ulrich Obrist（汉斯·尤利斯·奥布里斯特，曾与侯瀚如、郭晓彦一起策划第二届广州三年展） 对杰夫·昆斯所做的访谈也收录在画册中。

　　杰夫·昆斯1955年出生于美国宾夕法尼亚州，80年代开始出名；出名后他在各类艺术杂志上刊登自己的照片广告，甚至还请了形象顾问。实际上，从他备受争议的艺术生涯的一开始，他就颠覆了艺术作品和作品语境的传统概念。他宣称自己的策略是让艺术变得美丽、客观、亲切，能够与观者形成互动进而赋予观者力量。所以他把作品专注于让人略感意外又庸俗无奇的对象上，避开“艺术品味”的典型化标准，而迎合他所认为是寻常中产阶级的价值观，并希望借此暴露价值体系和审美等级的脆弱性。

Jeff Koons, Triple Hulk Elvis I, 2007. Colección William J. Bell.

© Jeff Koons

NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian Gallery has published a new book featuring the work by Jeff Koons. This recent publication features Jeff Koons' painting series, Hulk Elvis, in which he creates large works of the 'Incredible Hulk', inflatable monkeys, geishas, birds, and the Liberty Bell, all bursting with energy and precision. These spectacular pictorial inventions of brightly-colored silhouettes loom and recede in the swirling delirium of color and line, creating visceral manifestations that dazzle the eye and confound the senses. A text by Scott Rothkopf and an interview between the artist and Hans Ulrich Obrist are included in this fully illustrated catalogue.

From the outset of his controversial career, Jeff Koons turned the traditional notion of the work of art and its context inside out. Focusing on unexpected yet banal objects as models for his work, he eschewed typical standards of "good taste" in art, instead embracing what he perceives as conventional middle-class values in order to expose the vulnerabilities of aesthetic hierarchies and value systems. Koons’s declared strategies are to make art beautiful, to strive for objectivity, to give back the familiar, and to reflect, and thus empower, the viewer. The works of Koons’s series "Hulk Elvis" burst with energy and precision yet mystify with their complex permutations and combinations of figurative and abstract elements. A charged mix of inflatable monkeys, geishas, birds, the "Incredible Hulk", and the Liberty Bell jostle against realistically rendered landscapes, gestural paintings, steam engines and horse-drawn carriages, negative silhouettes, and underlying dot screens.

Jeff Koons was born in 1955 in York , Pennsylvania . He received his B.F.A. at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been widely exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Recent solo shows include the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (2003), the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art , Oslo (2004), which traveled to the Helsinki City Art Museum (2005); Museum of Contemporary Art , Chicago (2008); "Jeff Koons: Versailles ", Chateâu de Versailles , France (2008); and the Neuer Nationalgalerie Berlin (2008–9). Koons lives and works in New York City .

（Text from artdaily.org）

【编辑：石棱】