And now for something completely different. Taschen has just published a fabulous book retracing the entire career of Jeff Koons. It is impossible to look at his work without smiling. Koons himself is always smiling, as if inviting the viewer to share in the enjoyment of his work. It's schmaltzy, crunchy, shiny and glossy. His pieces are instant, cheerful, icons of popular culture. With the exception of the "Made in Heaven" series, which seem strangely literal, self indulgent and cold and whose shock value comes more from its sheer bad taste than from its explicit sexual content, Koons manages to combine wit, warmth, technical perfection and a complex simplicity in his multiple cross references to consumer culture, pop art, infantile imagery and sexual tease.
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