January 21, 2008
Jeff Koons and Appropriation
“String of Puppies” offers triteness on a heroic scale — a strange and troubling idea. The all-around cuteness of the notecard, its softness, has been hardened into the little cute-symbols of the daisies. In the notecard the viewer unconsciously completes the legs that are cut off at the bottom of the picture frame; in the sculpture, the dog-owners simple do not have legs. And the unreality of the dogs, too, has become explicit, by making them blue and reducing their noses to a cartoon flatness. Koons has drained away the false emotion of the original, and then has enthroned the lifeless result. The whole object is solid, massive, glowing with light and vivid color — a minutely-wrought shrine to a cupcake god.
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