Jeff Koons’ Triple Elvis is a large (102 x 138 inches), finely detailed oil painting currently on display at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum in Los Angeles. One assumes from the title that the piece is Koons’ contemporary take on Andy Warhol’s Triple Elvis of 1963. Koons’ work, however, diverges quite dramatically from Warhol’s famous triple screen-printing of Elvis. Rather than a two-toned work with the same image repeated, Koons’ Triple Elvis is gaudily chromatic with a schizophrenic layering of appropriated imagery, including some from his own body of work. While the level of craftsmanship and detail employed in the piece is quite stunning, ultimately the work is a visual vomit of everyday imagery from western society; ugly and difficult to view. And this might just be Koons’ point.

The painting is a layered composition of imagery, with a background composed from a horizontally and vertically mirrored reproduction from a comic strip. Two areas appear upside down and two appear right-side up. The comic strip, or cartoon, is unfamiliar and becomes a patterned backdrop to the figures in the foreground of the painting. The middle ground of the work reflects the subject matter of the piece’s presumed inspiration, Warhol’s Triple Elvis. Three seductive poses of a semi-nude woman are placed along the horizontal center of the painting. Whether these images are appropriated from an outside source, or if the subject posed specifically for the piece is unclear. The top layer of the painting appropriates one of Koon’s own sculptures; a large inflatable lobster. The lobster is placed horizontally across the center of the image, effectively “censoring” the exposed breasts of the woman.

Koons’ Triple Elvis seems to be a rumination on our era’s schizophrenic proliferation of media. One could argue that we are constantly bombarded with an endless stream of media overwhelming our senses. Finding solace from the visual and audible cacophony is becoming ever more difficult in our civilized environments. In Koons’ Triple Elvis we see a visual representation of this cacophony. It’s gaudy, loud, ugly and overwhelming visually. The imagery used is common, and in this piece, verges on pornographic. While Warhol’s Triple Elvis employed one posed image of a popular entertainer to reflect on popular culture; Koons’ work uses highly contrasting, layered imagery plundered from our everyday culture. Though an eye sore visually, the point of view of the piece is evident and successful overall.

Richard Serra’s Sequence occupies the west gallery of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum alone, and activates the entire space with its curving, monochromatic mass. The sheer scale of the piece, along with the kinetic energy it creates, oxymoronically, through its static form, would seem to prohibit the inclusion of any other accompanying pieces in the gallery. Therefore, one is left to confront and experience the piece without distraction.

Sequence is made from the same torqued steel that Serra has been using as his material of choice for the past few decades. His mastery of the material is evident in this sculpture. Monumental torqued steel pieces are fitted together to create a curving maze of sorts.

The viewer is at first confronted with the overall mass of the piece and the visual compositions created from the angular and curving mass on the outside. Seeing an opening, Serra’s piece invites the viewer to enter the sculpture, thereby controlling the viewer’s experience while making the piece interactive. Once inside the “walls” of the sculpture, the viewer is directed along a continuously curving path of reddish hued steel. The visual sensation of hugging the continuous inside curve of the wall is quite exciting and at times dizzying. The viewer can never see what is coming ahead as the visual edge of the curve never changes position in the viewer’s scope of vision; however the viewer’s position is constantly changing. The “entrances” and “exits” to the sculpture provide pleasing visual experiences as the sculpture’s shapes form angular, asymmetrical compositions against the white gallery walls. Furthermore, their narrow openings cause a sensation of being squeezed by the material which is quite visceral.

Serra’s work is about material and the perception of the material. With Sequence, the viewer is certainly aware of the weight of the material and the precarious nature of having heavy steel curve around them. Aside from the masculine nature of the material and weight, the piece is truly beautiful to look at and experience. The monochromatic reddish hue of the steel along with the sinuous lines created by the structure of the piece provide a perfect complementary experience to that of the heaviness and banality of the material used solely to create this monumental piece.