"Elvis". Oil on canvas, by Jeff Koons (2003).
Saw this in a 2007 issue of the New Yorker, along with an article on Koons.
"Elvis", oil on canvas, 108 x 93 inches, 274.3 x 236.2 cm, 2003. If you didn't notice, that's Heather Kozar, Playboy Playmate of the Year for 1999. Apparently, Koons felt her eyes and stare matched those of The King. Thus, the title of the piece. I apologize for the nudity. Usually don't have it on this site, but it is, after all, art.
Jeff Koons is an American artist whose work incorporates kitsch imagery using painting, sculpture, and other forms, often in large scale. He was married to Hungarian-born, naturalized-Italian porn star Cicciolina, who for five years (1987–1992) pursued an alternate career as a member of the Italian parliament. His "Made in Heaven" series of paintings, photos and sculptures portrayed the couple in explicit sexual positions and created even more controversy.
Koons has received extreme reactions to his work. Critic Amy Dempsey described his BalloonDog as "an awesome presence... a massive durable monument." Jerry Saltz at artnet.com enthused that it was possible to be "wowed by the technical virtuosity and eye-popping visual blast" of Koons's art.
Mark Stevens of The New Republic dismissed him as a "decadent artist [who] lacks the imaginative will to do more than trivialize and italicise his themes and the tradition in which he works... He is another of those who serve the tacky rich." Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times saw "one last, pathetic gasp of the sort of self-promoting hype and sensationalism that characterized the worst of the 1980s" and called Koons' work "artificial," "cheap" and "unabashedly cynical."
In an article comparing the contemporary art scene with show business, renowned critic Robert Hughes wrote that Koons is “an extreme and self-satisfied manifestation of the sanctimony that attaches to big bucks. Koons really does think he's Michelangelo and is not shy to say so. The significant thing is that there are collectors, especially in America, who believe it. He has the slimy assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida. And the result is that you can't imagine America's singularly depraved culture without him.”
You'll have to check him out on the Web yourself. Not sure about the lobster meaning though...
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