The mainstream media’s recent attempts at writing off the critics of Jeff Koons’s Versailles exhibition as “conservative” miss a simple point:

Jeff Koons is probably the worst living artist, if not one of the worst artists who ever lived. This is not a political argument, but an aesthetic truth.

In fact, the ponderous garbage that Koons produces sullies the very word art, and you don’t have to be an art critic or an intellectual to figure this out – you just have to have eyes.

Provocation on its own is fine and can even be great. But unless you’re some soft-headed puritan from the Midwest, there is nothing remotely offensive or provocative about Koons’s so-called work in terms of content. Rather it is meant to offend through sheer tackiness. It is no compliment to Koons that his execrable non-efforts are successful in this dubious realm. It is a sign of mass stupidity, blindness, and vulnerability to manufactured reputations that he has become so successful materially.

We must always question the legitimacy of any institution or gallery that, by showing Jeff Koons, attempts to legitimize him as an artist.