Cathy's Art Diary

Enjoyable exhibition at the Newport Street Gallery of work from throughout Jeff Koons career. I know there is a serious point behind these works about consumerism, mass culture taste etc but whatever the point they make me smile! I love the fact that so much of it is very ordinary objects but not made of the usual materials. Who can resist an inflatable lobster balanced on a chair but made out of aluminium and steel! There was one of the classic Koons balloon animals made of stainless steel which completely filled the double height middle room in the gallery which meant you could not only look round it but also down on it. I liked the steel reworkings of marble statues and again it was lovely that you could walk all around the works and look at the detail. I loved the huge pile of Play-Doh in the last room. It looked so realistic but was made of 27 individual pieces cast in aluminium held together by their own weight. I loved the juxtaposition of the bright colours an...

Disappointing exhibition at Brighton Museum of work by Jeff Koons. It was disappointing because it was quite small with only about 10-12 works. What was there was good and interesting there just wasn’t enough to get a good overview. I did like the tourist bears, exquisitely carver by traditional German wood carvers but in themselves rather banal. It did make we wonder if it’s time for a good retrospective of Koon’s work. The works were from ARTIST ROOMS, a collection of modern and contemporary art jointly owned by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland.