My Sunday started disastrously. The hail storm over Zurich had destroyed all plants in my garden (see blog A usual Sunday). In order to emotionally recover from the traumatic view of by garden buried under hailstones, I went with my youngest (5 years old) to Basel.
The Fondation Beyeler currently shows works by Jeff Koons. A living US artist (*1955), who fascinates both my 5-years old son as well as myself. His figures are lively, colourful and huge. It is impossible to miss these figures in a garden.
His pictures spark with life, warmth and closeness.
The first piece of art we see is the Split Rocker. A colossal flower sculpture, planted with thousands of flowers in the middle of the park. In fact it is a huge head, one half a forward-facing pony, the other a dinosaur looking sideways. We walk around it a few times and goggle again at the next piece. It is the Balloon Flower (blue). The Balloon Flower looks like a huge balloon, fixed in the middle of the pond to prevent it flying away. It seems soft and weightless, but actually it is made of high-alloyed stainless chrome steel and consequently hard and weights tons.
Through the windows we look into the exhibition halls of the museum. My boy is looking forward to seeing the Balloon Dog (red) and wants us to hurry up in order to see it at close range.
And the first hall is really a surprise. A hall full of old, unused hoovers and rug shampooers standing on fluorescent lights. I know that art is supposed to polarise and to invite discussions but this installation, called The New, seems ironical to me. Do you know the feeling when you are standing in front of a piece of art and cannot understand why this is art? I was having that feeling. It does not look like art but more like the storage of a cleaning company.
With Koons some works look incredibly kitschy. Were he not a celebrated world star, one might ask oneself, if one ended up on a fun fair. For example Cat on a Clothesline. It is just cute and my smallest one likes it a lot but I could not stand seeing it every day.
Nevertheless, the majority of the works is fantastic and beyond what one is seeing every day. The trip to Basel was really worth it.
I would love to have a Split Rocker with thousands of flowers in my garden and honestly, I would have taken a hoover as well (without the fluorescent lights). Simply because mine seems not to be working properly any more. You see!! It is art. It made me thinking!
Michaela Merz 