The type of artist represented by Baudelaire, someone who inadvertently causes fright, would today seem not only antiquated but almost grotesque. The artist who typifies our age is Jeff Koons. He appears smart. His works reflect the smooth consumer world that is the opposite of the world of shocks. All Koons wants from his audience is a simple ‘Wow!’ His art is intentionally relaxed and disarming. What he wants above all is to be liked. His motto is ‘embrace the viewer’. There is nothing in his art that is intended to frighten or rattle the viewer. His art is located beyond the world of shocks. Its aim, Koons says, is ‘communication’. He could also have said: the watchword of my art is the like. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. The Crisis of Narration. Cambridge: Polity Press.


















