In many ways, the monkey is more human like than the person. Rather than having the human looking straight at you, the monkey is. The monkey is sitting up with quiet poise, and the person is sprawled. There is a striking physical resemblance between the monkey and the person. Both have eyeliner, the same strange half-smile, and the same outfit. There’s an ambiguity of species identification and categorization. Human and monkey could become interchangeable terms with this image.
I see a porcelain Michael Jackson holding a golden monkey and that in itself disturbs me. Michael Jackson was quite an artist but... due to the media coverage of his baby dangling and the molestation charges, he has come to represent something very corrupt. I wonder if anyone else sees Michael Jackson?
Anyway, the gold color gives this image a quality of imperial overvaluation while the pasty whiteness of the porcelain exudes an air of hollow indifference. Since the whiteness covers Jackson's skin, it seems to make a statement about his personal lack of self worth, a certain sense of insecurity.
Pure Wealth. Nothing better to do this picture of a sculpture of leisure displaces the viewer further and further away from the wealth. The chimp (Bubbles)looks straightforward as the camera as though he is the one with intelligence while the man (Jackson) has a distant look in his eyes...diverted from humankind...more comfortable with the pet that sits so intimately on his lap.
This image insists on itself as it provides the viewer with nothing to view but the statuette itself. The background is white, the object is centered, its begs to be examined. The fact that the statuette is Michael Jackson and his chimpanzee Bubbles changes the viewer's experience with the image because that image's viewing is now easily informed by whatever notions the viewer has about Michael Jackson.
In any case, the image does invoke a kind of seeing seeing in that the human sees something the viewer does not seem privy to, while the chimp undoubtedly sees the viewer seeing it. The chimp's stare doesn't seem to interrogate the viewer though, as it looks forwards quite contentedly, unassumingly.
Size becomes a mystery in the frame of this image; the viewer has no way to really gauge the size of this figurine. The ambiguity of size unsettles the viewer a bit, takes the viewer's notion of a figurine and warps it a little.
This image occupies a confusing amount of space. It appears to be a photograph of a small figurine, but there is nothing else in the image to indicate its size. The viewer cannot determine the distance between the camera and figurine, so perhaps the figurine is a large statue. The background and whatever the figurine sits on are the same tone of white as the white of the figurine, but they don't occupy the same plane. The figurine somehow holds onto its three-dimensionality, despite being in a two-dimensional image. This image contains a depth and an indeterminable size it has no reason to have, but it does all the same.
Oh look, it's Michael Jackson with a monkey. It's a golden idolatrous relic. Michael Jackson is so adorable and his monkey is even cuter. They make a great pair, probably in more ways than one. I love Michael Jackson. He is a great artist and connisseur of fine chil-I mean wine. Did you know that he has the biggest collection of fine wines in the US? That might be a lie.
Say, Michael Jackson sure does look like his monkey. Are they related?
When Jeff Koons was crafting this statue from indistinct materials, something must have struck him. Considering the reading this week, the blank ceramic mass already knew about everything that had been done before, all of the cliche's, all of the soon-to-be-cliche's. Indeed, the gold leaf has been responsible for much of what is considered contemporary kitsch. The viewer cannot be sure that Koons set out with a vision of a life-size statue of a pop star and his troglodyte, nor that this would be the most valuable sculpture by a living artist in existence today. This isn't just any pop star though, this is the King of Pop. Perhaps life-size is dwarfing in this case. Perhaps the image and the statement are intertwined. The form itself seems to be invested in modern kitsch-cool idolatry. Isn't that a sin? What happens when our values contradict popular culture? Maybe in Koons' becoming acquainted with Jackson (figure as Figure) it became apparent that his statue required these materials. It is possible that this is a product of a kind of knowing that is separate from mine because it is someone else's. Nevertheless, it is familiar and surreal: One can't help but consider Jackson's cosmetic surgeries as a kind of sculpting.
This image contains a myriad of symbols: controversial pop star, gold, rose pedals, makeup, personified non-human primate, et cetera. This symbolism begs the question as to what symbolism does to an image. Does this symbolism achieve a David Lynch-type horror effect? Is it alienating? I feel horrified and alienated, but that may not have as much relevance to this image as it does my own associations with the symbolism.
Instead of talking about my own feelings, I would like to take a more interesting approach -- I would like to talk about the cliché. The use of symbols is always already cliché because to recognize a symbol is to employ one's own familiarity with the history of that symbol's use. We know that rose pedals symbolize romance because of the cliché use of rose pedals to induce romantic feelings, just as we know that gold symbolizes luxuriousness because of the cliché use of gold to express luxuriousness.
But is this image -- a collage of the cliché -- the sum of its parts, or is it something more? I would like to argue that this image supersedes the cliché by using its "symbols" in non-symbolic ways. Using rose pedals to induce romantic feelings (or also anti-romantic feelings) is cliché; however, using rose pedals in a way that acknowledges the cliché, but at the same time is indifferent to its status as such, is entirely different. This image takes command of the cliché, it transforms it; it creates something new out of something old; it breathes life into the dead. This image is art.
There is so much that could be read into this object and yet none of it is coherant or sensable. Their is nothing about the piece that tries to convince the viewer of an argument but at the same time it is undoublably uncomfortable. The object enters the viewers personal space in ways that are unnexpected. THe piece feels overdone and mass produced, almost kitch but at the same time it isn't it is individual.
The viewer cannot positively tell where Michael is looking and what he is looking at. The great ape is confronting the viewer though. As the viewer looks into the eyes of the ape and Michael, the viewer realizes that the eyes of both are repeated. That factor, combined with the positioning of their eyes, is an affect of wicked invitation. It's like someone opening their arms as if to hug, but the smile they wear says otherwise.
The already over-the-top image of Michael Jackson is further heightened in gold and porcelain. It is at once familiar and quite strange and different. It's a new way of looking at Jackson and Bubbles. A familiar icon has been turned into an image that begs a lot of questions. What is the setting of this image? Where does it belong? Is there a message the viewer is supposed to glean?
The image is interesting because it resists attempts to explain it. The viewer is confronted with an image of Michael Jackson, a figure well known in popular culture. However, Michael Jackson is not engaging in any activity consistent with our idea of who he is. In other words, we recognize him, but we cannot explain his place in the image itself; in other words, the events of the image have little to do with Michael Jackson. Thus, the image relocates the viewer's attention away from explaining Michael Jackson's presence, and towards the aesthetics of the image itself.
this image is a strange incarnation of kitsch. it is so obviously tacky because it incorporates elements of a multitude of cliches–pop music icon Michael Jackson, gold, a trained animal, and the porcelain medium itself. It is cliche but at the same time it is rather beautiful and ornate; the folds of Jackson's clothing, the texture of the monkeys fur. The image shows a well known figure in a completely new light, perhaps even the way Jackson sees himself, rather than depicting him in a conventionally negative way. It is sentimental but something else is at work here though i am not finding words for this mysterious affective force.
this image stirs up a hot and frenzied mood, only, no one mood in particular. a viewer could scoff in disgust at a corrupt king of pop, at innocent children exploited. another might laugh at the hilarity of this ridiculous fellow lounging in rose petals with his partner in crime. another still would perhaps sigh at the vanity and overindulgence of modern society, hmmmm. one way or another this image screams "i'm ardently ambiguous!"
though the statuette sits on white it is in no way perched on a blank canvas; even emptiness is loaded with memories and stories and all kinds of stuff. the image tugs on one nerve or another depending on which invisible substances lurk in those white spaces. artist and viewer both give way to the bumbling fullness of life. this image embraces the input of the ever-changing this and that in the cooking of a fresh and delicious affect.
There’s no cultural nor media association with Michael Jackson here. It doesn’t portray about anything typical mental connection with Michael Jackson besides that fact its Michael Jackson. Hence, it’s Michael Jackson in repetition? Not a copy, imitation or representation but Michael Jackson repeating and taking up the world in new and different way. It’s Golden with golden monkey breaking away from cliché and creating Michael Jackson more real than the real portrait of Michael Jackson. The king of pop relived in more real way.
Is this an image of a statue, or is the image the statue itself? Regardless, the statue is creepy and it is hard to look at it without thinking about Michael Jackson the celebrity. However, this image is creepy for different reasons as well. The red lipstick on Michael Jackson gives him an asexual quality; is he more human than the monkey, or vice versa? The gold of the statue seems to indicate wealth and class, yet the contrast with the white and the odd design seems almost the opposite. This image is a work of contradictions; a man and his monkey, a human monkey and his pet man (?), an expression of wealth and the upper class, an expression of something which is classless.
Golden Michael Jackson holding a monkey is not a superior component of this image. In no way shape or form is the center-spectacle more important than the indiscriminate outer-spectacle. The center is, rather, contingent on the outer, and vice versa. Thus, enveloping him, a subtle and richly coated gray soothes the onlooker as this ostentatiously golden motif violently calls for your eye. Michael may catch your eye as the spectacle, as the centerpiece, but what’s new? Michael as spectacle, is that new? No, it’s is old, it’s the always and already, boring. This is the spotlight in which he has always existed. Instead of clinging on to the banally of the supposed foreground – golden Michael and his monkey in hand – take a step back and relish in the supposed background: this kindly coated gray. Indeed this gray extremely pleasant. Take a look.
The expressions on the faces of the monkey and the man are almost identical. The color schemes in their clothes and on their faces are almost identical. In a way, the monkey looks very much like a man, and the man very much like a monkey. The man holds the monkey like a child and the monkey sits as though it is the child of the man. There are golden flowers scattered around them. The simplicity of the pose and of the colors, only white and gold with red on the lips, gives the impression that there is nothing out of ordinary with the image. The pose of the two characters is also not out of the ordinary. Only the fact that the monkey is acting like the child of the man, or the man like the father of the monkey, contrasts the ordinary with something strange. I guess it only takes one thing out of the ordinary to make an otherwise boring image interesting and difficult to dismiss as ordinary.
The color in this image is particularly striking. Not only do the vibrant gold and red colors stand out against the white portions of the figure and the background, but they are abnormal colors upon realistic figures. The colors stand out even more due to the lack of background images and spatial definition. If the viewer looking at this image knows nothing of Michael Jackson then it is color that orients the viewer in his or her interaction with the image.
As creepy as it sounds, this is temptation. Temptation to revert to notions of what this literal figure is "pointing to" (Michael Jackson).
Which I just did, by saying creepy...I'm faced with this temptation, and consequently, I'm faced with a clashing of figure with what I am tempted to think it is a figure of.
I'm immediately tempted to ponder why this figure exists--which completely undermines it based on my privileging notions of things. So instead, I ask myself, why wouldn't it exist?
I have no idea. It just does. And that bothers me--no, rather, it moves and shakes me. Unsettles me.
To attempt the seeing of this image, the viewer must first and foremost liberate themselves from the tyranny of representation. This image is just another aspect of “stuff” among “stuff”. Despite the apparent clichés displayed in this image; i.e. the gold, the pop star, the chimp, and the flowers, this image takes command of the cliché: it transforms it. This image is able to create something new out of the over-familiar, the banal, and give birth to something novel: Art.
This image is the proliferation of difference; it displays another way in which these familiar aspects can go in the world. It is the repetition of the familiar, but it presents it in a fundamentally different way.
I didn't know gold could weigh the same as fabric, amazing. Who knew gold could be this casual? This comfortable? This quasi cross-legged yet somehow able to straddle a primate at the same time? The King of Pop appears especially grounded by his heel dug into the earth in front of you. Even though his facial features clearly date him back to the early nineties, you know he is present because of the way he makes you feel. The experience of looking at this, is to experience Micheal Jackson's career. The illustrious details captivate your attention by the performance of their sheer impossibility. However if you stare at the face to long you get creeped-out. In fact, as far as affect is concerned this is the most "Michealy Jacksony" thing there is.
This image teems with cliches: Michael Jackson, his sidekick of many years, Bubbles, both clad in gold, adorned with red lipstick and gold leaves and made of porcelain. The king of pop and his chimpanzee have indeed become the gold standard of kitsch. Images of the two cliched subjects have been reproduced many times before, yet this image rises above cliches. Is this in fact another reproduction of Michael Jackson and Bubbles, or is it an image of a reproduction of the two? Because the background is all white, a viewer cannot grasp the actual size of this porcelain. Does it fit in the palm of my hand or is it a life size statute? Why are the two just sitting there? Shouldn't the king of pop be captured doing what he does best: entertaining (dancing and singing). This is an attempt to defy the cliche or rather to deform the cliche.
Interestingly, the image appears to be so clearly representational, yet the viewer encounters an unfamiliar rendering of the monkey and Michael Jackson. It is conceivable that the image was created upon viewing the actual popstar. As such, the image seems to be no more than model, a true-to-life rendering. After all, the blank white background effectively directs the viewer's attention towards Michael Jackson and bubbles, and nothing else. Thus, they become monumentalized--they are statues beholden to the real popstar and real monkey. And yet, by depriving the image of a spatio-temporal context, the blank white background forges a new space for the viewer to take up Michael Jackson. The lack of a background functions to stifle the impulse to narrativize the image, and resists attempts to make sense of it by referencing the actual popstar.
In addition, the image presents Michael and the monkey as indistinguishable, to the extent that they are composed of the same substance and rendered aesthetically in the same color and texture. Perhaps, man and monkey are one and the same, not fundamentally different.
This figure appears to pop from the seemingly blank space around it, as if it were created from some void, as if the artist created this figure from scratch. One might say that this statue was placed INTO this empty space, thereby giving its empty surroundings some sort of meaning relative to itself.
But, Deleuze would argue that the figure of Michael Jackson and Bubbles is one of the millions of things this white space was ALREADY filled with, thus rendering this “blank” space not blank at all. The artist managed to cut through the packed space, edit out all other clichés and combine certain elements with other clichés, to creatively bring to the fore—VOILA!—this glorious figure of Michael and Bubbles.
We can imagine Michael Jackson wishing he were made of porcelain, and wishing that all of his friends were as well. In light of this, the porcelain statue of Michael Jackson tempts the viewer to think not porcelain statue of Michael Jackson, but the Porcelain Michael Jackson (PMJ). But PMJ, even with PB on his lap, is lonely. PMJ is radiant, but cold. The gold is rigid, and the exposed porcelain under carefully positioned track lighting is course, sad, blushing; and something is wanting at the site. We need the living Michael Jackson with his emollient touch to christen PMJ, with kiss and caress, the consummate blessing: a causa finalis. Plastic to porcelain, make him warm. We’ll take a picture.
The miracle of Michael Jackson. The image of this gold statue- a fake, sculpted, seemingly satirical statue of M Jackson and his monkey- becomes pure miracle as the picture loads onto our computer screens. The intersection of representation + affect. Do we think of all Jackson's pop songs, his creepy fascination with odd animals, his "history" when we see this? No- what the viewer experiences is the photographer's composition of surprise, its way of moving with and off of the cliche of this celebrity figure. It's a gleaming, gold, ALIEN, statue. I like it for its shine.
The figure is definitely in the genre of kitch, a cheap piece of tacky "household art," but there is something entirely challenging about the presence of Michael Jackson and Bubbles. Ceramics of this style are, just like motel art, a confirmation, a comfort. Here, we have a figure imbued with pop culture significance, depicted in a somewhat creepy way.
What individual, in the market for ceramic knick-knacks for their home, would want this?
What happens when someone is immortalized in a gilded porcelain statue? Do they become an Alexander the Great, an Aphrodite? The statue of michael and bubbles makes no attempt to solidify them in the pantheon of the world. Instead it is awkward and pre-mature. The golden gild becomes an inflection upon the subject, a flesh that calls the viewer to completely reevaluate what lies before.
What is this figurine? It's molded together and the man and monkey have become one. Two figuratively active beings yet here there is no life. Absolutely still; less fluid than stone.
If this image were satirical or ironic, the cynical jesting would be directed not the subject physically depicted--Michael Jackson and Bubbles--but at the impulse to satire itself. Yes, Michael and Bubbles do indeed look rather ridiculous rendered in garishly gaudy gold and white among roses in hyper-contrived poses reminiscent of classical studies of form. But is that really the whole joke? "Look, it's an homage to Michael and Bubbles! An homage to celebrity kitsch! HA!" Let's hope not.
There is more to this than consciously odd glorification of iconography. Something in the expression on Bubbles' face elicits sympathy. He stares straight ahead, dead center, with a calmness that comes not from reservation but the lack of a need for it. He seems secure, and Michael appears as a powerfully nurturing force. Their postures appear not only as classically composed, but as though posed for family portrait as well. Michael's unconventional idea of nurturing is of course what he is most satirized for, but with Bubbles that cliche is evaded simultaneously as it is evoked.
It’s a celebration—they’ve been showered with roses, as if they've been captured at the end of a performance. Appropriately so, as MJ’s life, since childhood, has been a series of performances whether he is on stage or not. From dancing on top of his limousine outside of the courthouse to adopting Bubbles from the laboratory.
This image reduces MJ to his simplest form: a novelty. A gilded porcelain tchotchke, like many of his lyrics, more decorative than functional. Engineered to elicit a similar response too, amusement on the most superficial level.
That is, until you notice Bubbles staring straight at you. Then the image takes on an entirely different, and completely unnerving, affect.
I know we should move away from talking about things that are not in the image or treating an image as representation, but here's something that might prove interesting:
This image is multiple removals from the real, representations of representations. An image of a statue of a pop idol image of a once-black man.
Now that that's over with, the image seems to offer a world inapproachable, so shined and smooth that it becomes impossible to break into. Though the monkey's eyes engage the viewer, who's to say that the monkey's gaze is any more engaging than Michael's? To say that its gaze is more important, more meaningful is to suggest the dominance of the viewer over the image, holding the viewer on a pedestal that doesn't exist. Here's a thought: the camera/viewer figures himself self-important, so he photographs the monkey looking at him straight on. The camera seeks to imply the gaze's importance to the viewer, but if the camera decided to picture otherwise, we would think less of the gaze, wouldn't we?
Doubly removed. An image of a sculpture. The gilded value of representation. A statue of royalty and engraving materiality to secure the image of the self-obsessed. Opulence molded in reconstructed identity, whether porcelain or plastic, gilded or chiseled in the nostril region. Or perhaps just a modern symbol of the King of Pop embalming in a heart of gold. I wonder what its interior looked like, or am I missing some figure of speech in it all.
I remember in elementary school some kid who thought he was really unique said his favorite color was white. Another kid, who thought himself smart, then told told him that "white" was not a color.
What makes this image interesting is its use of the color white. White can be the color of porcelain/clay, which this image seems to be made from. If so, one would think that the gold is painted ONTO the white of the porcelain. But the smudge of skin-peach on both Jackson and Bubbles' cheeks causes the viewer to rethink. Since peach is the color of skin, it makes the viewer wonder if in fact, the white has been painted ONTO the peach. Is the white some sort of make-up?
So, though this image moves beyond representation, it uses it by making the viewer think of the white of porcelain and the peach of skin, and then plays with it and uses it to image-make instead of represent. To image-make by image-editing. To create by cutting.
The two bodies are with each other, but separate too. Michael is gazing off at something else, while clutching onto Bubbles, whose eyes look intently on the "focus point" of the camera. The camera fixes to the monkey's look. From the posture of the camera, Michael is connected with the setting of the image, though his posture is askew. Michael's posture is and is not directed towards a common point. Looking at it from the camera's angle, Michael almost impossibly supports his weight with his left hand (right shoulder should be slung further back, given the physics of his posture). Bubbles is the counteracting anchor for this inconsistent force. The monkey tilts slightly off keel because of this, but nonetheless preserves its space, perhaps through the porcelain statue's fixed nature. Michael's left leg is supporting Bubbles' posture. Michael's right leg, from this camera angle, sticks out, and the heel digs into the ground for placement. Flowers happen amongst Bubble’s lap and the flowers are ornaments around the porcelain statue.
This sculpture is pure commodity. It is worth more than it is worth visually. The commodity has become so life like and endowed with meaning because it looks and acts as a cliche. Micheal has become a commodity and so has bubbles. The pop culture fad emanates throughout it.
He’s made of clay, but he’s made of gold, but he’s made of photograph, yet still not entirely different than the monkey, which doesn’t entirely resemble a monkey or a person—somewhere in between. They wear the same pattern, the same clay skin. Are they really that different? And surely there is differentiation, but something about this image draws some strange parallels between the two that would not otherwise be so noticeable when we think of Michael Jackson and Bubbles. In a way, it gives birth to a new and strange space of how the two interact and co-mingle. How does this one-dimensional photo appear as multiple dimensions? How does this photograph capture the palpability of the texture, a canvas that comes to life in a three or more dimensional figure? Michael, Bubbles, and the canvas all appear as one figure, and still all very separate figures. How does this image make its viewer want to reach out and touch this new invisible space that would reassure its form?
The image of perfection in Michael Jackson. Idyllic. Golden Madonna and child. Ironic in its choice of character and yet no less aesthetically appealing. It feigns omnipotence and exhibits beauty. The divine understanding in bubbles's eyes transports the viewer to an a plane of uncomfortable instability. To be recognized let alone understood by a golden, porcelain monkey is uncharted territory and it is as fantastic and idealistic as is this divine duo. To view this is to realize pure fantasy.
Each week, we will consider an image. This image may come from anywhere—from a painting, the news, an art photograph, a picture of my child.
Your job is to read this image. You need write only four lines; you may write more. Inflect the image. Give it a spin. Make us see what we may not be seeing. Take up the image, do something with it, then give it back to us—in words.
The goal is multifold. It is to learn to reckon a diversity of images. It is to learn the art of the riff, the spin, the take. And, in the end, I hope we have created an exquisite symphony, a chorus of voices, each distinct, each singing an image in its own register.
ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED. You may miss 3 classes during the semester. For each class missed after that, your grade will be lowered a full grade—from an A to a B.
EVERY weekend, I will post an image on this blog. By Thursday's class, you must write a response to that image as a comment on this blog. -You will have to create a Google account. -Please use your name in your identity so I know who you are when you post your comment. If you already have a Google identity but it does not reflect your name, please create a new one. -Your comment can be brief; in fact, it should be—anywhere from 3-10 lines. Try to make it pithy, astute, sharp. -These are not optional: each one you miss will translate into the loss of a full grade for your class participation grade.
There will be three papers scattered through the semester; they will be @ two pages long. These are not optional. If you fail to do one, you will fail the class.
Grading -Class participation: 30% -Paper 1: 20% -Paper 2: 20% -Paper 3: 30% -I WILL NOT GRANT INCOMPLETES.
In many ways, the monkey is more human like than the person. Rather than having the human looking straight at you, the monkey is. The monkey is sitting up with quiet poise, and the person is sprawled. There is a striking physical resemblance between the monkey and the person. Both have eyeliner, the same strange half-smile, and the same outfit. There’s an ambiguity of species identification and categorization. Human and monkey could become interchangeable terms with this image.
ReplyDeleteI see a porcelain Michael Jackson holding a golden monkey and that in itself disturbs me. Michael Jackson was quite an artist but... due to the media coverage of his baby dangling and the molestation charges, he has come to represent something very corrupt. I wonder if anyone else sees Michael Jackson?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the gold color gives this image a quality of imperial overvaluation while the pasty whiteness of the porcelain exudes an air of hollow indifference. Since the whiteness covers Jackson's skin, it seems to make a statement about his personal lack of self worth, a certain sense of insecurity.
Pure Wealth. Nothing better to do this picture of a sculpture of leisure displaces the viewer further and further away from the wealth.
ReplyDeleteThe chimp (Bubbles)looks straightforward as the camera as though he is the one with intelligence while the man (Jackson) has a distant look in his eyes...diverted from humankind...more comfortable with the pet that sits so intimately on his lap.
This image insists on itself as it provides the viewer with nothing to view but the statuette itself. The background is white, the object is centered, its begs to be examined. The fact that the statuette is Michael Jackson and his chimpanzee Bubbles changes the viewer's experience with the image because that image's viewing is now easily informed by whatever notions the viewer has about Michael Jackson.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, the image does invoke a kind of seeing seeing in that the human sees something the viewer does not seem privy to, while the chimp undoubtedly sees the viewer seeing it. The chimp's stare doesn't seem to interrogate the viewer though, as it looks forwards quite contentedly, unassumingly.
Size becomes a mystery in the frame of this image; the viewer has no way to really gauge the size of this figurine. The ambiguity of size unsettles the viewer a bit, takes the viewer's notion of a figurine and warps it a little.
This image occupies a confusing amount of space. It appears to be a photograph of a small figurine, but there is nothing else in the image to indicate its size. The viewer cannot determine the distance between the camera and figurine, so perhaps the figurine is a large statue. The background and whatever the figurine sits on are the same tone of white as the white of the figurine, but they don't occupy the same plane. The figurine somehow holds onto its three-dimensionality, despite being in a two-dimensional image. This image contains a depth and an indeterminable size it has no reason to have, but it does all the same.
ReplyDeleteOh look, it's Michael Jackson with a monkey. It's a golden idolatrous relic. Michael Jackson is so adorable and his monkey is even cuter. They make a great pair, probably in more ways than one. I love Michael Jackson. He is a great artist and connisseur of fine chil-I mean wine. Did you know that he has the biggest collection of fine wines in the US? That might be a lie.
ReplyDeleteSay, Michael Jackson sure does look like his monkey. Are they related?
When Jeff Koons was crafting this statue from indistinct materials, something must have struck him. Considering the reading this week, the blank ceramic mass already knew about everything that had been done before, all of the cliche's, all of the soon-to-be-cliche's. Indeed, the gold leaf has been responsible for much of what is considered contemporary kitsch.
ReplyDeleteThe viewer cannot be sure that Koons set out with a vision of a life-size statue of a pop star and his troglodyte, nor that this would be the most valuable sculpture by a living artist in existence today. This isn't just any pop star though, this is the King of Pop. Perhaps life-size is dwarfing in this case. Perhaps the image and the statement are intertwined.
The form itself seems to be invested in modern kitsch-cool idolatry. Isn't that a sin? What happens when our values contradict popular culture?
Maybe in Koons' becoming acquainted with Jackson (figure as Figure) it became apparent that his statue required these materials. It is possible that this is a product of a kind of knowing that is separate from mine because it is someone else's. Nevertheless, it is familiar and surreal: One can't help but consider Jackson's cosmetic surgeries as a kind of sculpting.
This image contains a myriad of symbols: controversial pop star, gold, rose pedals, makeup, personified non-human primate, et cetera. This symbolism begs the question as to what symbolism does to an image. Does this symbolism achieve a David Lynch-type horror effect? Is it alienating? I feel horrified and alienated, but that may not have as much relevance to this image as it does my own associations with the symbolism.
ReplyDeleteInstead of talking about my own feelings, I would like to take a more interesting approach -- I would like to talk about the cliché. The use of symbols is always already cliché because to recognize a symbol is to employ one's own familiarity with the history of that symbol's use. We know that rose pedals symbolize romance because of the cliché use of rose pedals to induce romantic feelings, just as we know that gold symbolizes luxuriousness because of the cliché use of gold to express luxuriousness.
But is this image -- a collage of the cliché -- the sum of its parts, or is it something more? I would like to argue that this image supersedes the cliché by using its "symbols" in non-symbolic ways. Using rose pedals to induce romantic feelings (or also anti-romantic feelings) is cliché; however, using rose pedals in a way that acknowledges the cliché, but at the same time is indifferent to its status as such, is entirely different. This image takes command of the cliché, it transforms it; it creates something new out of something old; it breathes life into the dead. This image is art.
There is so much that could be read into this object and yet none of it is coherant or sensable. Their is nothing about the piece that tries to convince the viewer of an argument but at the same time it is undoublably uncomfortable. The object enters the viewers personal space in ways that are unnexpected. THe piece feels overdone and mass produced, almost kitch but at the same time it isn't it is individual.
ReplyDeleteThe viewer cannot positively tell where Michael is looking and what he is looking at. The great ape is confronting the viewer though. As the viewer looks into the eyes of the ape and Michael, the viewer realizes that the eyes of both are repeated. That factor, combined with the positioning of their eyes, is an affect of wicked invitation. It's like someone opening their arms as if to hug, but the smile they wear says otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe already over-the-top image of Michael Jackson is further heightened in gold and porcelain. It is at once familiar and quite strange and different. It's a new way of looking at Jackson and Bubbles. A familiar icon has been turned into an image that begs a lot of questions. What is the setting of this image? Where does it belong? Is there a message the viewer is supposed to glean?
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ReplyDeleteThe image is interesting because it resists attempts to explain it. The viewer is confronted with an image of Michael Jackson, a figure well known in popular culture. However, Michael Jackson is not engaging in any activity consistent with our idea of who he is. In other words, we recognize him, but we cannot explain his place in the image itself; in other words, the events of the image have little to do with Michael Jackson. Thus, the image relocates the viewer's attention away from explaining Michael Jackson's presence, and towards the aesthetics of the image itself.
ReplyDeletethis image is a strange incarnation of kitsch. it is so obviously tacky because it incorporates elements of a multitude of cliches–pop music icon Michael Jackson, gold, a trained animal, and the porcelain medium itself. It is cliche but at the same time it is rather beautiful and ornate; the folds of Jackson's clothing, the texture of the monkeys fur. The image shows a well known figure in a completely new light, perhaps even the way Jackson sees himself, rather than depicting him in a conventionally negative way. It is sentimental but something else is at work here though i am not finding words for this mysterious affective force.
ReplyDeletethis image stirs up a hot and frenzied mood, only, no one mood in particular. a viewer could scoff in disgust at a corrupt king of pop, at innocent children exploited. another might laugh at the hilarity of this ridiculous fellow lounging in rose petals with his partner in crime. another still would perhaps sigh at the vanity and overindulgence of modern society, hmmmm. one way or another this image screams "i'm ardently ambiguous!"
ReplyDeletethough the statuette sits on white it is in no way perched on a blank canvas; even emptiness is loaded with memories and stories and all kinds of stuff. the image tugs on one nerve or another depending on which invisible substances lurk in those white spaces. artist and viewer both give way to the bumbling fullness of life. this image embraces the input of the ever-changing this and that in the cooking of a fresh and delicious affect.
There’s no cultural nor media association with Michael Jackson here. It doesn’t portray about anything typical mental connection with Michael Jackson besides that fact its Michael Jackson. Hence, it’s Michael Jackson in repetition? Not a copy, imitation or representation but Michael Jackson repeating and taking up the world in new and different way. It’s Golden with golden monkey breaking away from cliché and creating Michael Jackson more real than the real portrait of Michael Jackson. The king of pop relived in more real way.
ReplyDeleteIs this an image of a statue, or is the image the statue itself? Regardless, the statue is creepy and it is hard to look at it without thinking about Michael Jackson the celebrity. However, this image is creepy for different reasons as well. The red lipstick on Michael Jackson gives him an asexual quality; is he more human than the monkey, or vice versa? The gold of the statue seems to indicate wealth and class, yet the contrast with the white and the odd design seems almost the opposite. This image is a work of contradictions; a man and his monkey, a human monkey and his pet man (?), an expression of wealth and the upper class, an expression of something which is classless.
ReplyDeleteGolden Michael Jackson holding a monkey is not a superior component of this image. In no way shape or form is the center-spectacle more important than the indiscriminate outer-spectacle. The center is, rather, contingent on the outer, and vice versa. Thus, enveloping him, a subtle and richly coated gray soothes the onlooker as this ostentatiously golden motif violently calls for your eye. Michael may catch your eye as the spectacle, as the centerpiece, but what’s new? Michael as spectacle, is that new? No, it’s is old, it’s the always and already, boring. This is the spotlight in which he has always existed. Instead of clinging on to the banally of the supposed foreground – golden Michael and his monkey in hand – take a step back and relish in the supposed background: this kindly coated gray. Indeed this gray extremely pleasant. Take a look.
ReplyDeleteThe expressions on the faces of the monkey and the man are almost identical. The color schemes in their clothes and on their faces are almost identical. In a way, the monkey looks very much like a man, and the man very much like a monkey. The man holds the monkey like a child and the monkey sits as though it is the child of the man. There are golden flowers scattered around them. The simplicity of the pose and of the colors, only white and gold with red on the lips, gives the impression that there is nothing out of ordinary with the image. The pose of the two characters is also not out of the ordinary. Only the fact that the monkey is acting like the child of the man, or the man like the father of the monkey, contrasts the ordinary with something strange. I guess it only takes one thing out of the ordinary to make an otherwise boring image interesting and difficult to dismiss as ordinary.
ReplyDeleteThe color in this image is particularly striking. Not only do the vibrant gold and red colors stand out against the white portions of the figure and the background, but they are abnormal colors upon realistic figures. The colors stand out even more due to the lack of background images and spatial definition. If the viewer looking at this image knows nothing of Michael Jackson then it is color that orients the viewer in his or her interaction with the image.
ReplyDeleteAs creepy as it sounds, this is temptation. Temptation to revert to notions of what this literal figure is "pointing to" (Michael Jackson).
ReplyDeleteWhich I just did, by saying creepy...I'm faced with this temptation, and consequently, I'm faced with a clashing of figure with what I am tempted to think it is a figure of.
I'm immediately tempted to ponder why this figure exists--which completely undermines it based on my privileging notions of things. So instead, I ask myself, why wouldn't it exist?
I have no idea. It just does. And that bothers me--no, rather, it moves and shakes me. Unsettles me.
To attempt the seeing of this image, the viewer must first and foremost liberate themselves from the tyranny of representation. This image is just another aspect of “stuff” among “stuff”. Despite the apparent clichés displayed in this image; i.e. the gold, the pop star, the chimp, and the flowers, this image takes command of the cliché: it transforms it. This image is able to create something new out of the over-familiar, the banal, and give birth to something novel: Art.
ReplyDeleteThis image is the proliferation of difference; it displays another way in which these familiar aspects can go in the world. It is the repetition of the familiar, but it presents it in a fundamentally different way.
I didn't know gold could weigh the same as fabric, amazing. Who knew gold could be this casual? This comfortable? This quasi cross-legged yet somehow able to straddle a primate at the same time? The King of Pop appears especially grounded by his heel dug into the earth in front of you. Even though his facial features clearly date him back to the early nineties, you know he is present because of the way he makes you feel. The experience of looking at this, is to experience Micheal Jackson's career. The illustrious details captivate your attention by the performance of their sheer impossibility. However if you stare at the face to long you get creeped-out. In fact, as far as affect is concerned this is the most "Michealy Jacksony" thing there is.
ReplyDeleteThis image teems with cliches: Michael Jackson, his sidekick of many years, Bubbles, both clad in gold, adorned with red lipstick and gold leaves and made of porcelain. The king of pop and his chimpanzee have indeed become the gold standard of kitsch. Images of the two cliched subjects have been reproduced many times before, yet this image rises above cliches. Is this in fact another reproduction of Michael Jackson and Bubbles, or is it an image of a reproduction of the two? Because the background is all white, a viewer cannot grasp the actual size of this porcelain. Does it fit in the palm of my hand or is it a life size statute? Why are the two just sitting there? Shouldn't the king of pop be captured doing what he does best: entertaining (dancing and singing). This is an attempt to defy the cliche or rather to deform the cliche.
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ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the image appears to be so clearly representational, yet the viewer encounters an unfamiliar rendering of the monkey and Michael Jackson. It is conceivable that the image was created upon viewing the actual popstar. As such, the image seems to be no more than model, a true-to-life rendering. After all, the blank white background effectively directs the viewer's attention towards Michael Jackson and bubbles, and nothing else. Thus, they become monumentalized--they are statues beholden to the real popstar and real monkey. And yet, by depriving the image of a spatio-temporal context, the blank white background forges a new space for the viewer to take up Michael Jackson. The lack of a background functions to stifle the impulse to narrativize the image, and resists attempts to make sense of it by referencing the actual popstar.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the image presents Michael and the monkey as indistinguishable, to the extent that they are composed of the same substance and rendered aesthetically in the same color and texture. Perhaps, man and monkey are one and the same, not fundamentally different.
This figure appears to pop from the seemingly blank space around it, as if it were created from some void, as if the artist created this figure from scratch. One might say that this statue was placed INTO this empty space, thereby giving its empty surroundings some sort of meaning relative to itself.
ReplyDeleteBut, Deleuze would argue that the figure of Michael Jackson and Bubbles is one of the millions of things this white space was ALREADY filled with, thus rendering this “blank” space not blank at all. The artist managed to cut through the packed space, edit out all other clichés and combine certain elements with other clichés, to creatively bring to the fore—VOILA!—this glorious figure of Michael and Bubbles.
Pop Gods.
ReplyDeleteHark!
This image proclaims the truth that was before “truth” was understood to have its own nature, before truth was considered.
Apes can be gods. And all the gods are apes.
As Hanuman is a devotee of Lord Rama for many Hindus, most everybody alive in the 80’s spent some time as a devotee of Lord Michael.
Adorned in gold, and joined at the hip, these gods, pathetic and divine in their distinct moments, are here for us.
We can imagine Michael Jackson wishing he were made of porcelain, and wishing that all of his friends were as well. In light of this, the porcelain statue of Michael Jackson tempts the viewer to think not porcelain statue of Michael Jackson, but the Porcelain Michael Jackson (PMJ). But PMJ, even with PB on his lap, is lonely. PMJ is radiant, but cold. The gold is rigid, and the exposed porcelain under carefully positioned track lighting is course, sad, blushing; and something is wanting at the site. We need the living Michael Jackson with his emollient touch to christen PMJ, with kiss and caress, the consummate blessing: a causa finalis. Plastic to porcelain, make him warm. We’ll take a picture.
ReplyDeleteThe miracle of Michael Jackson. The image of this gold statue- a fake, sculpted, seemingly satirical statue of M Jackson and his monkey- becomes pure miracle as the picture loads onto our computer screens. The intersection of representation + affect. Do we think of all Jackson's pop songs, his creepy fascination with odd animals, his "history" when we see this? No- what the viewer experiences is the photographer's composition of surprise, its way of moving with and off of the cliche of this celebrity figure. It's a gleaming, gold, ALIEN, statue. I like it for its shine.
ReplyDeleteThe figure is definitely in the genre of kitch, a cheap piece of tacky "household art," but there is something entirely challenging about the presence of Michael Jackson and Bubbles. Ceramics of this style are, just like motel art, a confirmation, a comfort. Here, we have a figure imbued with pop culture significance, depicted in a somewhat creepy way.
ReplyDeleteWhat individual, in the market for ceramic knick-knacks for their home, would want this?
What happens when someone is immortalized in a gilded porcelain statue? Do they become an Alexander the Great, an Aphrodite? The statue of michael and bubbles makes no attempt to solidify them in the pantheon of the world. Instead it is awkward and pre-mature. The golden gild becomes an inflection upon the subject, a flesh that calls the viewer to completely reevaluate what lies before.
ReplyDeleteMonkey Man?
ReplyDeleteWhat is this figurine? It's molded together and the man and monkey have become one. Two figuratively active beings yet here there is no life. Absolutely still; less fluid than stone.
If this image were satirical or ironic, the cynical jesting would be directed not the subject physically depicted--Michael Jackson and Bubbles--but at the impulse to satire itself. Yes, Michael and Bubbles do indeed look rather ridiculous rendered in garishly gaudy gold and white among roses in hyper-contrived poses reminiscent of classical studies of form. But is that really the whole joke? "Look, it's an homage to Michael and Bubbles! An homage to celebrity kitsch! HA!" Let's hope not.
ReplyDeleteThere is more to this than consciously odd glorification of iconography. Something in the expression on Bubbles' face elicits sympathy. He stares straight ahead, dead center, with a calmness that comes not from reservation but the lack of a need for it. He seems secure, and Michael appears as a powerfully nurturing force. Their postures appear not only as classically composed, but as though posed for family portrait as well. Michael's unconventional idea of nurturing is of course what he is most satirized for, but with Bubbles that cliche is evaded simultaneously as it is evoked.
It’s a celebration—they’ve been showered with roses, as if they've been captured at the end of a performance. Appropriately so, as MJ’s life, since childhood, has been a series of performances whether he is on stage or not. From dancing on top of his limousine outside of the courthouse to adopting Bubbles from the laboratory.
ReplyDeleteThis image reduces MJ to his simplest form: a novelty. A gilded porcelain tchotchke, like many of his lyrics, more decorative than functional. Engineered to elicit a similar response too, amusement on the most superficial level.
That is, until you notice Bubbles staring straight at you. Then the image takes on an entirely different, and completely unnerving, affect.
I know we should move away from talking about things that are not in the image or treating an image as representation, but here's something that might prove interesting:
ReplyDeleteThis image is multiple removals from the real, representations of representations. An image of a statue of a pop idol image of a once-black man.
Now that that's over with, the image seems to offer a world inapproachable, so shined and smooth that it becomes impossible to break into. Though the monkey's eyes engage the viewer, who's to say that the monkey's gaze is any more engaging than Michael's? To say that its gaze is more important, more meaningful is to suggest the dominance of the viewer over the image, holding the viewer on a pedestal that doesn't exist. Here's a thought: the camera/viewer figures himself self-important, so he photographs the monkey looking at him straight on. The camera seeks to imply the gaze's importance to the viewer, but if the camera decided to picture otherwise, we would think less of the gaze, wouldn't we?
Doubly removed. An image of a sculpture. The gilded value of representation. A statue of royalty and engraving materiality to secure the image of the self-obsessed. Opulence molded in reconstructed identity, whether porcelain or plastic, gilded or chiseled in the nostril region. Or perhaps just a modern symbol of the King of Pop embalming in a heart of gold. I wonder what its interior looked like, or am I missing some figure of speech in it all.
ReplyDeleteI remember in elementary school some kid who thought he was really unique said his favorite color was white. Another kid, who thought himself smart, then told told him that "white" was not a color.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes this image interesting is its use of the color white. White can be the color of porcelain/clay, which this image seems to be made from. If so, one would think that the gold is painted ONTO the white of the porcelain. But the smudge of skin-peach on both Jackson and Bubbles' cheeks causes the viewer to rethink. Since peach is the color of skin, it makes the viewer wonder if in fact, the white has been painted ONTO the peach. Is the white some sort of make-up?
So, though this image moves beyond representation, it uses it by making the viewer think of the white of porcelain and the peach of skin, and then plays with it and uses it to image-make instead of represent. To image-make by image-editing. To create by cutting.
The two bodies are with each other, but separate too. Michael is gazing off at something else, while clutching onto Bubbles, whose eyes look intently on the "focus point" of the camera. The camera fixes to the monkey's look. From the posture of the camera, Michael is connected with the setting of the image, though his posture is askew. Michael's posture is and is not directed towards a common point. Looking at it from the camera's angle, Michael almost impossibly supports his weight with his left hand (right shoulder should be slung further back, given the physics of his posture). Bubbles is the counteracting anchor for this inconsistent force. The monkey tilts slightly off keel because of this, but nonetheless preserves its space, perhaps through the porcelain statue's fixed nature. Michael's left leg is supporting Bubbles' posture. Michael's right leg, from this camera angle, sticks out, and the heel digs into the ground for placement. Flowers happen amongst Bubble’s lap and the flowers are ornaments around the porcelain statue.
ReplyDeleteThis sculpture is pure commodity. It is worth more than it is worth visually. The commodity has become so life like and endowed with meaning because it looks and acts as a cliche. Micheal has become a commodity and so has bubbles. The pop culture fad emanates throughout it.
ReplyDeleteHe’s made of clay, but he’s made of gold, but he’s made of photograph, yet still not entirely different than the monkey, which doesn’t entirely resemble a monkey or a person—somewhere in between. They wear the same pattern, the same clay skin. Are they really that different? And surely there is differentiation, but something about this image draws some strange parallels between the two that would not otherwise be so noticeable when we think of Michael Jackson and Bubbles. In a way, it gives birth to a new and strange space of how the two interact and co-mingle. How does this one-dimensional photo appear as multiple dimensions? How does this photograph capture the palpability of the texture, a canvas that comes to life in a three or more dimensional figure? Michael, Bubbles, and the canvas all appear as one figure, and still all very separate figures. How does this image make its viewer want to reach out and touch this new invisible space that would reassure its form?
ReplyDeleteThe image of perfection in Michael Jackson. Idyllic. Golden Madonna and child. Ironic in its choice of character and yet no less aesthetically appealing. It feigns omnipotence and exhibits beauty. The divine understanding in bubbles's eyes transports the viewer to an a plane of uncomfortable instability. To be recognized let alone understood by a golden, porcelain monkey is uncharted territory and it is as fantastic and idealistic as is this divine duo. To view this is to realize pure fantasy.
ReplyDelete