Koons’s linking of refinement with debasement recalls Joan Didion’s closing comment in her essay on the Getty Villa, which, she says, serves as “a palpable contract between the very rich and the people who distrust them the least.” Tacky and overt signs of luxury are for the poor. Tasteful, subdued signs of luxury are for the rich. But the very richest do not buy Frangelico. They buy Jeff Koons paintings of liquor advertisements, sure that they are in on the joke, which is how any palpable contract—between peddler and consumer, artist and critic, artist and collector—functions best.