Whenever anything is out in the open, removed from the private into the larger social culture it will inevitably be interpreted by people who view it. They may take this information and further encode the what they see appropriating it with its own new interpretation to be decoded. In Jeff Koons life sized porcelain sculpture titled Michael Jackson and Bubbles he uses appropriation techniques to create a dialogue between the encoded and decoded messages the piece could create as well as the different reading it could elicit. Jeff Koons is an artist who is not a stranger to controversy and people who have different interpretations of his work is part of why he is so successful. His artwork appropriates from "low" art and he turns it into "high"
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This would have added to the significance of the piece, compared to now, after he has passed away which would change the meaning if people saw it today. The sculpture is life sized and it is made of porcelain and has gold and white for colours. Koons created the sculpture to resemble La Pietà by Michelangelo, thus attaching a religious significance to the pop culture icon. Koons probably appropriated from pictures to create the piece, and encoded them with his own interpretation of seeing this major star everywhere. In a way, he somewhat steals the image of Michael Jackson and uses him for his own gain, which to me feels like an echo of Michael Jacksons' real life where he was always being created and controlled by others. In many reports about him there is always some mention of his unstable identity.
Identity in the work seems to be an important element considering some people have read ideas of racism and effeminacy in the work. People have decoded the work as having this connotation to it. Others have, as the artist has somewhat intended, interpreted it as divine and likened him to a god. Jeff Koons working with pop culture icons and giving them divine status has been done in other works like, Lady Gaga's Art Pop, she is likened to Venus or like in the sculpture titled Made in Heaven with Koons and his famous wife Iona are likened to Adam and Eve with the …show more content…
There are certainly many readings that can be made about the sculpture both from its earlier interpretations about Michael Jackson at the top of his career to the new interpretations that have come when the original meaning is more obscure from time and these interpretations can come. I think the work is more likely to elicit strong reactions from people because it is a real person that people know from elsewhere and will be their associations of that person to the work and would probably colour their view of the
This would have added to the significance of the piece, compared to now, after he has passed away which would change the meaning if people saw it today. The sculpture is life sized and it is made of porcelain and has gold and white for colours. Koons created the sculpture to resemble La Pietà by Michelangelo, thus attaching a religious significance to the pop culture icon. Koons probably appropriated from pictures to create the piece, and encoded them with his own interpretation of seeing this major star everywhere. In a way, he somewhat steals the image of Michael Jackson and uses him for his own gain, which to me feels like an echo of Michael Jacksons' real life where he was always being created and controlled by others. In many reports about him there is always some mention of his unstable identity.
Identity in the work seems to be an important element considering some people have read ideas of racism and effeminacy in the work. People have decoded the work as having this connotation to it. Others have, as the artist has somewhat intended, interpreted it as divine and likened him to a god. Jeff Koons working with pop culture icons and giving them divine status has been done in other works like, Lady Gaga's Art Pop, she is likened to Venus or like in the sculpture titled Made in Heaven with Koons and his famous wife Iona are likened to Adam and Eve with the …show more content…
There are certainly many readings that can be made about the sculpture both from its earlier interpretations about Michael Jackson at the top of his career to the new interpretations that have come when the original meaning is more obscure from time and these interpretations can come. I think the work is more likely to elicit strong reactions from people because it is a real person that people know from elsewhere and will be their associations of that person to the work and would probably colour their view of the