The bombast of Schnabel, Salle, and the neo-expressionists paved the way for somebody like Jeff Koons, who presented himself as a genius, a maker of masterpieces—rather than as the dreary professorial type, which describes a lot of ’70s artists. Koons’s “Banality” show in 1988 was as great as people remember it. It was such an ’80s high point that, in a weird way, you want to say it happened in the ’90s.
—As told to Julie Caniglia
