Plato oh Play Doh

A close up of Play Doh by Jeff Koons

Currently in the newly renovated Getty Villa on the Pacific Coast Highway in California sits a giant lump of play doh. A child's dizzy Alice in Wonderland dream come to life. It looks so soft and beckoning as it towers above the viewer and invites a wild urge to fall into it or at the very least to touch. It is the detail that is astonishing. The smooth, wet texture of pliable play doh and the dried out creases where the dough and air have collided, except it's not. It's made of aluminium and took twenty years of alchemy for artist Jeff Koons to be satisfied he had got it right. 

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation." Plato

Also on view are works by Paul Chan, Rachel Harrison, Huang Yong Ping, Mike Kelley, Joseph Kosuth, Paul McCarthy, Whitney McVeigh, Raymond Pettibon, Adrian Piper, and Michelangelo Pistoletto.

Intellect to Opinion, 2017, Joseph Kosuth; warm white neon. Courtest of the artist. @2018 Joseph Kosuth