The banality is a comment on the world around this artist and he wants the viewer to perhaps get offended… perhaps just notice that not everything that constitutes of important art has to be intense and widely-understood by the audience.

Many critics will say that Koons doesn’t just divide opinion; he causes real animosity, and passionate arguments. And the reason for this also stems from his work’s joke-like qualities: not only do some people not ’get’ it, but in not getting it they also assume that they’re being made to look like idiots.

Many accuse Koons of making fun of his audience Only when the joker falls about laughing does the victim realize that they’re the punch line of a joke but nobody knows what the joke is and the joker is not explaining it further. Some people, when confronted by Koons’ work, are quite disturbed by it because their understanding does not embrace a second-hand store object painted in garish colors as something that could be considered art.

Koons’ source material is kitsch and most people, art world or not, would agree that indeed it is… kitsch. The big issue with Koons then, if not the source material itself, it is his attitude towards that source material. This issue is always phrased in dual terms because indeed Jeff Koons is ironic and detached and he is secretly mocking the images he professes to love or perhaps no, he just loves and feels emotional about his source material and the work it consequently gives birth to.

He takes such post-modern issues as high and low culture, context, and moderation of art as the central focus of his work.