Koons Is Hulk Is Koons

jeff koons, middle aged white guy in a suit, poses like the hulk sculpture he's standing right next to and slightly behind, at the white cube gagosian hk gallery in 2014. the hulk is larger than life size, and based on a raging inflatable version of hulk, with green skin and purple pants. this one has several smaller inflatable toys and animal figures across its shoulders, which explains the title, Hulk (Friends). it's all made, ridiculously, out of cast and polychromed bronze. may tse shot this for the south china morning post, which handed it over to getty images, so i want to make it clear that i'm using and crediting the original, but also that the purpose is specifically to critique koons's performative approach to such publicity photos as this one, and in a less onerous photo usage regime than the one getty lords over, I could do an entire art historical essay on the variety and analysis of koons's photographic relationship to his own work.
it was there all along: May Tse’s 2014 photo of Koons hulking for the South China Morning Post at Gagosian HK

On the latest episode of artnet’s Art Angle podcast, Andrew Russeth called the Hulks Jeff Koons’s self-portraits, and now every photocall of Koons making deranged faces and poses around his sculptures for the last thirty years makes sense.

kusama is a young japanese woman in a black short sleeved dress, hair pulled back, arms crossed in front of her, and a dour expression on her face. she stands in front of an infinity net painting, and there is a double exposure which covers her and the entire image with an infinity net pattern of painted white loops. c. 1960, via moma's 1998 catalogue, i think
Yayoi Kusama, double exposure self-portrait, 1960, via MoMA’s 1998 catalogue, I think.

I think you have to go back to Yayoi Kusama to find an artist more embedded, photographically, in their own work. To the extent it represents her own obliteration, Kusama’s work is a kind of self-portrait, too, I guess.

a warhol painting made by screenprinting a black image of elvis dressed as a cowboy, legs wide, holding a gun, twice, on a silver canvas, this 1963 painting sold at christie's in 2019 for $53 million on an estimate of $50-70m, so they barely eked that out.
Warhol, Double Elvis (Ferus Type), 1963, silkscreen ink and silver paint on linen, 82 x 53 or so, I’m rounding for legibility. The guarantor who paid $53m for it at Christie’s in 2019 knows how big it is

Koons calls these Hulks Hulk Elvis, presumably because of the stance. Warhol’s Elvises never registered with me as self-portraits the way Deborah Kass’s Yentl paintings do. But clearly, I’ve been missing the signs.

a deborah kass painting made by screenprinting a near lifesize image of barbra streisand dressed as yentl, in a long coat, pants, vest, and cap, holding a talmud or something, hand in pocket, twice, overlapping and somewhat transparent, on a silver canvas. kass echoed warhol's paintings of a similarly stanced elvis, tho ofc elvis was dressed as a cowboy. via kavi gupta gallery
Deborah Kass, Double Ghost Yentl (My Elvis), 1997, silkscreen ink and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 52 in., via Kavi Gupta Gallery

Russeth also referenced Peter Schjeldahl when saying that Koons’ operative mode is rage, which, after all, is what provoked Bruce Banner to transform into the Hulk. The specific line I remember is from Schjeldahl’s review of Dakis Joannou’s collection exhibition at the New Museum, where he was a trustee, and he said “his deepest passion is anger.” But I think Russeth’s closer. Which reminds me, isn’t the New Yorker art critic desk still open? Can we not manifest this?