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Personally, I think Jeff Koons' artwork is really cool and interesting. Of course, I always liked Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher, even though my painting professors were constantly calling them gimmicky hacks. Is Koons' work overrated? Maybe, but the way that artists are elevated to the status of "greatness" in the Art world seems a bit too arbitrary to me, anyway.

When I first saw Jeff Koons' famous "sculpture", "Three-Ball 50/50 Tank", consisting of three basketballs floating perfectly in the middle of an aquarium, I saw the connection to Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain"(The famous and controversial sculpture "created" by simply turning a urinal on it's side and displaying it) and Pablo Picasso's "Tete de Taureau" (A sculptural depiction of a steer's skull created by joining the seat and handlebars of an old bicycle.)

In "Three-Ball 50/50 Tank", Koons uses industrially manufactured products to create a 3 dimensional construction in which the Basketballs are the subject. This is similar to the works of Duchamp and Picasso, but Koons takes away any reference to other images or objects. It is a clever extension of Andy Warhol's presentation of consumer products as Art objects.

Another imagery that Jeff Koons is famous for are his polished and chromed steel sculptures which look just like Mylar balloon animals. These sculptures take a fun but short-lived object, the balloon animal, and transforms it into a permanent object that will last for thousands of years.

Maybe Jeff Koons just got lucky in the fickle world of "High Art", but he is undoubtedly a very talented and creative artist. However, whether or not his giant sculpture of Michael Jackson and his pet monkey was really worth 5 million dollars, I'm not so sure.

Learn more about this author, Billy Sunshine.
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