Untitled (Owl), 2008

On the other hand, Koh confesses, “I like people to put words in my mouth. It’s an easy feeling. I mean, I can’t describe myself. It’s an impossibility. Am I beautiful, boastful, arrogant, rich, disgusting, distorting, that is for others to say. I don’t in general think too much about what is serious or what [is] not and that is a straightforward answer. I am therefore fascinated by Buddhism. It is very straightforward and I think I am not. I have a lot of confusing messages internally, sub-consciously. I think that the stuff I put out there in the world is for me a point of precision, of being straightforward.” The funny thing is, that as much as the artist insists on letting others speak for him, and as well as that has served his career, he truly has the most interesting things to say for himself. By the same token, he once told New York magazine, “[Peres] has never asked me about why I do a piece or my motivations or ideas or feelings for it. He makes it all up for the world and it’s a perfectly happy symbiosis.” He’s a little like Paris Hilton in that way. The heiress who is most famous for being famous is rumored to be a voracious reader of some intellect, who plays ditzy only because she has recognized the unfortunate truth that America loves their dumb blondes. This may, of course, be a rumor started by her handlers, but it’s the rumor that counts as truth these days.