MONKEY (Red-Orange) 1999

Editor: This is Jeff Koons' "MONKEY (Red-Orange)" from the Tate Collections. It's a large, vibrant shape – almost cartoonish. How do you interpret this work, especially in relation to pop culture? Curator: Koons often appropriates imagery from popular culture, challenging notions of high and low art. What does this simplified form of a monkey suggest to you about the infantilization of culture or the commodification of childhood innocence? Editor: I guess it feels a bit like a hollow shell of something once playful, now just...shiny. Curator: Precisely. It's through that tension – the recognizable form rendered in an almost sterile, mass-produced way – that Koons provokes us to question our relationship with objects and the values we assign to them. Editor: That's fascinating. I'll definitely look at Koons' work differently now. Curator: Indeed, art can be such a powerful tool to help us to see the world differently.