Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in ...
and his
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
s depicting everyday objects, including
balloon animals
Balloon modelling or balloon twisting is the shaping of special modelling balloons into almost any given shape, often a balloon animal. People who create balloon animals and other twisted balloon decoration sculptures are called Twisters, Ballo ...
produced in
stainless steel with mirror-
finish surfaces. He lives and works in both
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
and his hometown of
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many hist ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...
. His works have sold for substantial sums, including at least two
record auction prices for a work by a living artist: US$58.4 million for ''
Balloon Dog (Orange)
Balloon Dog is a series of sculptures by Jeff Koons.
The Broad in Los Angeles has a copy of ''Balloon Dog (Blue)''.
In 2013, ''Balloon Dog (Orange)'' sold at Christie's for $58.4 million.
References
Collection of The Broad
Sculptures by ...
'' in 2013 and US$91.1 million for ''
Rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit s ...
'' in 2019.
Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as
kitsch
Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste.
The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation wi ...
, crass, and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings and critiques in his works.
Early life
Koons was born in
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many hist ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...
, to Henry and Gloria Koons. His father
[Wood, Gaby (June 3, 2007)]
"The wizard of odd"
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
''. was a furniture dealer and interior decorator. His mother was a seamstress.
[ Schjeldahl, Peter]
"Funhouse – A Jeff Koons retrospective"
''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
'', June 9, 2008. When he was nine years old, his father would place old master paintings that Koons copied and signed in the window of his shop in an attempt to attract visitors. As a child he went door-to-door after school selling gift-wrapping paper and candy to earn pocket money. As a teenager he revered
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in ...
so much that he visited him at the
St. Regis Hotel
St. Regis Hotels & Resorts is a luxury hotel chain owned and managed by Marriott International.
History
In 1904, John Jacob Astor built the St. Regis New York as a sister property to his part-owned Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Exhibiting luxury and ...
in New York City.
Koons studied
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
at the
Maryland Institute College of Art
The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of t ...
in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
and the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum an ...
. While a student at the Art Institute, Koons met the artist
Ed Paschke, who became a major influence and for whom Koons worked as a studio assistant in the late 1970s. He lived in
Lakeview, and then in the
Pilsen neighborhood at
Halsted Street
Halsted Street is a major north-south street in the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois.
Location
In Chicago's grid system, Halsted Street marks 800 West, west of State Street, from Grace Street (3800 N) in Lakeview south to the city limits at t ...
and 19th Street.
After college, Koons moved to New York in 1977
[Ingrid Sischy (March 2001)]
"Koons, High and Low"
'' Vanity Fair''. and worked at the membership desk of the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...
while establishing himself as an artist. During this time, he dyed his hair red and often wore a pencil mustache, after Salvador Dalí.
In 1980, he became licensed to sell
mutual fund
A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV ...
s and stocks and began working as a
Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...
commodities broker at First Investors Corporation. After a summer with his parents in
Sarasota
Sarasota () is a city in Sarasota County, Florida, Sarasota County on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is renowned for its cultural and environmental amenities, beaches, resorts, and the Sarasota School of Architecture. The c ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...
, where he briefly worked as a political
canvasser
Canvassing is the systematic initiation of direct contact with individuals, commonly used during political campaigns. Canvassing can be done for many reasons: political campaigning, grassroots fundraising, community awareness, membership driv ...
, Koons returned to New York and found a new career as a commodities broker, first at Clayton Brokerage Company and then at
Smith Barney.
Work
Jeff Koons rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as part of a generation of artists who explored the meaning of
art in a media-saturated era. He gained recognition in the 1980s and subsequently set up a factory-like studio in a
SoHo
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was develo ...
loft on the corner of
Houston Street
Houston Street ( ) is a major east–west thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs the full width of the island of Manhattan, from FDR Drive along the East River in the east to the West Side Highway along the Hudson River in ...
and
Broadway in New York. It was staffed with over 30 assistants, each assigned to a different aspect of producing his work—in a similar mode as
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
's
Factory
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with t ...
. Koon's work is produced using a method known as
art fabrication.
[Akbar, Arifa]
"Koons Most Expensive Living Artist at Auction"
, ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...
'' (London), 7 November 2007. Until 2019, Koons had a studio factory near the old Hudson rail yards
[Lucy Davies (June 18, 2012)]
Is Jeff Koons having a laugh?
'' Daily Telegraph''. in
Chelsea and employed upwards of 90 to 120
assistants to produce his work.
More recently, Koons has downsized staffing and shifted to more automated forms of production and relocated to a much smaller studio space. Koons used a
color-by-numbers system, so that each of his assistants could execute his canvases and
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
s as if they had been done "by a single hand".
''Early Works'' and ''Inflatables''
Between 1977 and 1979 Koons produced four separate artworks, which he later referred to as Early Works. Starting from 1978 he worked on his ''Inflatables'' series, consisting of inflatable flowers and a rabbit of various heights and colors, positioned along with mirrors.
''The Pre-New'', ''The New'', and ''Equilibrium'' series
Since 1979 Koons has produced work within series. His early work was in the form of conceptual sculpture, an example of which is ''The Pre-New'', a series of domestic objects attached to light fixtures, resulting in strange new configurations. Another example is ''The New'', a series of
vacuum-cleaners, often selected for brand names that appealed to the artist like the iconic
Hoover, which he had mounted in illuminated
Perspex
Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...
boxes. Koons first exhibited these pieces in the window of the
New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...
in New York in 1980. He chose a limited combination of vacuum cleaners and arranged them in cabinets accordingly, juxtaposing the verticality of the upright cleaners with the squat cylinders of the "Shelton Wet/Dry drum" cleaners. At the museum, the machines were displayed as if in a
showroom, and oriented around a central red fluorescent lightbox with just the words "The New" written on it as if it were announcing some new concept or marketing
brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create a ...
.
Another example for Koons' early work is ''The Equilibrium Series'' (1983), consisting of one to three
basketballs floating in
distilled water
Distilled water is water that has been boiled into vapor and condensed back into liquid in a separate container. Impurities in the original water that do not boil below or near the boiling point of water remain in the original container. Thus, dis ...
, a project the artist had researched with the help of
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfre ...
-winning physicist
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superf ...
.
The ''Total Equilibrium Tanks'' are completely filled with distilled water and a small amount of ordinary
salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quanti ...
, to assist the hollow balls in remaining suspended in the centre of the liquid. In a second version, the ''50/50 Tanks'', only half the tank is filled with distilled water, with the result that the balls float half in and half out of the water. In addition, Koons conceived and fabricated five unique works for the ''Encased'' series (1983–1993/98), sculptures consisting of stacked sporting balls (four rows of six basketballs each, and one row of six soccer balls) with their original cardboard packaging in glass display case. Also part of the ''Equilibrium'' series are posters featuring basketball stars in
Nike advertisements and 10 bronze objects, representing lifesaving gear.
''Statuary'' series
Koons started creating sculptures using
inflatable
An inflatable is an object that can be inflated with a gas, usually with air, but hydrogen, helium and nitrogen are also used. One of several advantages of an inflatable is that it can be stored in a small space when not inflated, since infla ...
toys in the 1970s. Taking a readymade inflatable rabbit, Koons cast the object in highly polished stainless steel, resulting in ''
Rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit s ...
'' (1986), one of his most famous artworks. Originally part of the private collection of
Ileana Sonnabend
Ileana Sonnabend (née Schapira, October 29, 1914 – October 21, 2007) was a Romanian-American art dealer of 20th-century art. The Sonnabend Gallery opened in Paris in 1962 and was instrumental in making American art of the 1960s known in Europe, ...
, ''Rabbit'' is today owned by the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contempora ...
. A proof of the sculpture is owned by
Eli Broad
Eli Broad ( ; June 6, 1933April 30, 2021) was an American businessman and philanthropist. In June 2019, '' Forbes'' ranked him as the 233rd-wealthiest person in the world and the 78th-wealthiest in the United States, with an estimated net worth o ...
.
The ''Rabbit'' has since returned to its original soft form, and many times larger at more than 50 feet high, taken to the air. On October 15, 2009, the giant metallic monochrome color rabbit used during the 2007
Macy's
Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...
Thanksgiving day
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden ...
parade was put on display for
Nuit Blanche
Nuit Blanche () (White Night) is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival of a city. A Nuit Blanche typically has museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of t ...
in the
Eaton Centre
Eaton Centre is a name associated with shopping centres in Canada, originating with Eaton's, one of Canada's largest department store chains at the time that these malls were developed. Eaton's partnered with development companies throughou ...
in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...
. The other objects of the series combine objects Koons found in souvenir shops and baroque imagery, thereby playing with the distinction between low art and high art.
On May 15, 2019, Koons set the
record for most expensive piece sold by a living artist for the sale of "Rabbit". "Rabbit" was sold at Christie's Auction House for US$80 million which—including auctioneer's fees—resulted in a final sale price of US$91,075,000.
''Luxury and Degradation'' series and ''Kiepenkerl''
First shown in Koons' eponymous exhibitions at the short-lived International With Monument Gallery, New York, and at Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, in 1986, the ''Luxury and Degradation'' series is a group of works thematically centered on
alcohol
Alcohol most commonly refers to:
* Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom
* Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks
Alcohol may also refer to:
Chemicals
* Ethanol, one of sev ...
. This group included a stainless steel travel cocktail cabinet, a
Baccarat
Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...
crystal decanter and other hand-made renderings of alcohol-related paraphernalia, as well as reprinted and framed
ads for drinks such as
Gordon's Gin
Gordon's is a brand of London dry gin first produced in 1769. The top markets for Gordon's are the United Kingdom, the United States and Greece. It is owned by the British spirits company Diageo. It is the world's best-selling London dry gin. G ...
("I Could Go for Something Gordon's"),
Hennessy
Jas Hennessy & Co., commonly known simply as Hennessy (), is a French producer of cognac, which has its headquarters in Cognac, France.
It is one of the "big four" cognac houses, along with Martell, Courvoisier, and Rémy Martin, who together ...
("Hennessy, The Civilized Way to Lay Down the Law"),
Bacardi
Bacardi Limited (; ) is one of the largest privately held, family-owned spirits companies in the world. Originally known for its Bacardi brand of white rum, it now has a portfolio of more than 200 brands and labels. Founded in Cuba in 1862 ...
("Aquí... el gran sabor del ron Bacardi"),
Dewars ("The Empire State of Scotch"),
Martell ("I Assume You Drink Martell") and
Frangelico
Frangelico () is a brand of (flavored with hazelnuts) and herb-flavored liqueur coloured with caramel coloring, which is produced in Canale, Italy. It is 20% alcohol by volume (ABV) or 40 proof. Formerly, it was 24% ABV or 48 proof. When produ ...
("Stay in Tonight" and "Find a Quiet Table") in seductively intensified colors on canvas
Koons appropriated these advertisements and revalued them by recontextualizing them into artworks. They "deliver a critique of traditional advertising that supports
Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as w ...
's censorious view of the obscene promiscuity of consumer signs". Another work, ''Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Engine'' (1986), is based on a commemorative, collectible in bottle in the form of a
locomotive that was created by
Jim Beam; however, Koons appropriated this model and had it cast in gleaming stainless-steel. The train model cast in steel titled ''Jim Beam – Baggage Car'' (1986) even contains Jim Beam bourbon. With the ''Luxury and Degradation'' series Koons interfered into the realms of the social. He created an artificial and gleaming surface which represented a
proletarian
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
luxury. It was interpreted as seduction by simulation because it was fake luxury. Being the producer of this deception brought him to a kind of leadership, as he commented himself.
The same material of stainless steel was used for the statue of ''Kiepenkerl''. After being rebuilt in the 1950s, the figure of the itinerant trader was replaced by Jeff Koons in 1987 for the decennial ''Skulptur Projekte'' exhibition. Standing on a central square in Münster, the statue retained a certain cultural power as a nostalgic symbol of the past. During the production process, the foundry where the piece was being made wanted to knock the ceramic shell off too soon, which resulted in the piece being bent and deformed. Koons decided to bring in a specialist and give the piece "radical plastic surgery." After this experience he felt liberated: "I was now free to work with objects that did not necessarily pre-exist. I could create models."
''Banality'' series
Koons then moved on to the ''
Banality
In the Middle Ages, the ban (Latin ''bannus'' or ''bannum'', German ''Bann'') or banality (French ''banalité'') was originally the power to command men in war and evolved into the general authority to order and to punish. As such, it was the basis ...
'' series. For this project he engaged workshops in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
and
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
that had a long tradition of working in
ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelai ...
,
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
, and
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of ligni ...
.
The series culminated in 1988 with ''Michael Jackson and Bubbles,'' a series of three life-size gold-leaf plated
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
statues of the sitting
singer cuddling Bubbles, his pet chimpanzee. Three years later, one of these sold at
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
New York for US$5.6 million. Two of these sculptures are now at the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
and
the Broad
The Broad () is a contemporary art museum on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. The museum is named for philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, who financed the $140 million building that houses the Broad art collections. It offers free gene ...
Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) in downtown Los Angeles. The statue was included in a 2004 retrospective at the
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
which traveled a year later to the
Helsinki City Art Museum
Helsinki Art Museum ( fi, Helsingin taidemuseo, sv, Helsingfors konstmuseum), abbreviated as HAM, is an art museum in Helsinki, Finland. It is located in Tennispalatsi in Kamppi. The museum reopened after renovations and rebranding (as HAM) in ...
. It also featured in his second retrospective at the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contempora ...
, in 2008. The statue is currently back at the newly opened
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art at
Tjuvholmen in
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
. Recently, his work ''Christ and the Lamb'' (1988) has been analyzed as an acknowledgment and critique of the spiritual and meditative power of the Rococo.
Anticipating a less than generous critical response to his 1988 ''Banality'' series exhibition, with all of his new objects made in an edition of three, allowing for simultaneous, identical shows at galleries in New York, Cologne, and Chicago, Koons devised the ''Art Magazine Ads'' series (1988–1989). Placed in
Artforum
''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...
,
Art in America
''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It ...
,
Flash Art
''Flash Art'' is a contemporary art magazine, and an Italian and international publishing house. Originally published bilingually, both in Italian and in English, since 1978 is published in two separate editions, Flash Art Italia (Italian) and ...
, and Art News, the ads were designed as promotions for his own gallery exhibitions. Koons also issued ''Signature Plate'', an edition for
Parkett magazine, with a photographic decal in colors on a porcelain plate with gold-plated rim. Arts journalist Arifa Akbar reported for ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...
'' that in "an era when artists were not regarded as 'stars', Koons went to great lengths to cultivate his public persona by employing an image consultant". Featuring photographs by Matt Chedgey, Koons placed "advertisements in international art magazines of himself surrounded by the trappings of success" and gave interviews "referring to himself in the third person".
''Made in Heaven'' series
In 1989 the
Whitney Museum
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude ...
and its guest curator
Marvin Heiferman asked Koons to make an artwork about the media on a billboard
for the show "Image World: Art and Media Culture". The billboard was meant as an advertisement for an unmade movie, entitled ''Made in Heaven.'' Koons employed his then-wife
Ilona Staller ("
Cicciolina
Ilona Staller (born 26 November 1951), widely known by her stage name Cicciolina ("little chubby one"), is a Hungarian-Italian former porn star, politician, and singer.
Early life
Ilona was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her father, László Stal ...
") as a model in the shoot that formed the basis of the resulting work for the Whitney, ''Made in Heaven'' (1990–1991). Including works with such titles as ''Dirty Ejaculation'' and ''Ilonaʼs Asshole'', the series of enormous grainy photographs printed on canvas, glassworks, and sculptures portrayed Koons and Staller in highly explicit sexual positions and created considerable controversy. The paintings of the series reference art from the
Baroque and
Rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
periods—among others,
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his ...
,
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732
(birth/baptism certificate)
– 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific ar ...
and
François Boucher
François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...
—and also draw upon the breakthroughs of early modern painters as
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
and
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bor ...
.
[Jeff Koons: Made in Heaven, Paintings, October 6, 2010 – January 6, 2011](_blank)
Luxembourg & Dayan, New York.
The series was first shown at the 1990
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
.
[Jeff Koons]
Guggenheim Collection. Koons reportedly destroyed much of the work when Staller took their son Ludwig with her to Italy. In celebration of ''Made in Heavens 20th anniversary, Luxembourg & Dayan chose to present a
redux edition of the series.
The Whitney Museum also exhibited several of the photographs on canvas in their 2014 retrospective.
''Puppy''
Koons was not among the 44 American artists selected to exhibit their work in
Documenta
''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany.
The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultura ...
9 in 1992, but was commissioned by three art dealers to create a piece for nearby
Arolsen Castle
Arolsen Castle (german: Residenzschloss Arolsen) is a baroque-style '' schloss'' in Bad Arolsen, Hesse, Germany. The castle is now a museum, and is still inhabited by Wittekind, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont and his family.
As a result, it co ...
in
Bad Arolsen
Bad Arolsen (, until 1997 Arolsen, ''Bad'' being the German name for ''Spa'') is a small town in northern Hesse, Germany, in Waldeck-Frankenberg district. From 1655 until 1918 it served as the residence town of the Princes of Waldeck-Pyrmont and ...
, Germany. The result was ''Puppy'', a tall
topiary
Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...
sculpture of a
West Highland White Terrier
The West Highland White Terrier, commonly known as the Westie, is a breed of dog from Scotland with a distinctive white harsh coat with a somewhat soft white undercoat. It is a medium-sized terrier, although with longer legs than other Sco ...
puppy, executed in a variety of flowers (including
Marigolds, Begonias, Impatiens,
Petunia
''Petunia'' is genus of 20 species of flowering plants of South American origin. The popular flower of the same name derived its epithet from the French, which took the word ''petun'', meaning "tobacco," from a Tupi–Guarani language. A tende ...
s, and
Lobelia
''Lobelia'' () is a genus of flowering plants comprising 415 species, with a subcosmopolitan distribution primarily in tropical to warm temperate regions of the world, a few species extending into cooler temperate regions.Huxley, A., ed. (1992 ...
s)
[Jeff Koons: Puppy, June 6 – September 5, 2000](_blank)
Public Art Fund. on a transparent color-coated chrome stainless steel substructure. The self-cleaning flowers would grow for the specific length of time that the piece was exhibited. The size and location of ''Puppy'' -the courtyard of a baroque palace- acknowledged the mass audience. After the outbreak that followed his ''Made in Heaven'' series, Koons decided to make "an image that communicated warmth and love to people."
In 1995, in a co-venture between
Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to:
Africa
* Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi
Asia East Asia
* Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...
,
Kaldor Public Art Projects
Kaldor Public Art Projects is an Australian non-profit arts organisation established in 1969 by John Kaldor . The organisation collaborates with international artists to create site-specific art projects in public spaces in Australia.
Kaldor's f ...
and
Sydney Festival
Sydney Festival is a major arts festival in Australia's largest city, Sydney that runs for three weeks every January, since it was established in 1977. The festival program features in excess of 100 events from local and international artists ...
, the sculpture was dismantled and re-erected at the
Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to:
Africa
* Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi
Asia East Asia
* Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...
on
Sydney Harbour on a new, more permanent,
stainless steel armature with an internal
irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been dev ...
system. While the Arolsen ''Puppy'' had 20,000 plants, the Sydney version held around 60,000.
The piece was purchased in 1997 by the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preserva ...
and installed on the terrace outside the
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spa ...
. Before the dedication at the museum, an
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna
ETA, an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna ("Basque Homeland and Liberty"[ETA BASQUE ORGANIZA ...](_blank)
(ETA) trio disguised as gardeners attempted to plant explosive-filled flowerpots near the sculpture, but was foiled by
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous c ...
police officer Jose María Aguirre, who then was shot dead by ETA members. Currently the square in which the statue is placed bears the name of Aguirre. In the summer of 2000, the statue traveled to New York City for a temporary exhibition at
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commerce, commercial buildings covering between 48th Street (Manhattan), 48th Street and 51st Street (Manhattan), 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco ...
.
Media mogul
Peter Brant and his wife, model
Stephanie Seymour
Stephanie Michelle Seymour (born July 23, 1968) is an American model and actress. During the 1980s and 1990s, she was one of the most popular supermodels, being featured in the '' Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue'' and the cover of ''Vogue'', ...
, commissioned Koons to create a duplicate of the
Bilbao
)
, motto =
, image_map =
, mapsize = 275 px
, map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao
, pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe
, pushpin_map_caption ...
statue ''Puppy'' (1993) for their
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
estate, the Brant Foundation Art Study Center. In 1998, a miniature version of ''Puppy'' was released as a white glazed porcelain vase, in an edition of 3000.
''Celebration'' series
Koons' ''Celebration'' was to honor the ardently hoped-for return of Ludwig from Rome. Consisting of a series of large-scale sculptures and paintings of balloon dogs, Valentine hearts, diamonds, and
Easter egg
Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest trad ...
s, was conceived in 1994. Some of the pieces are still being fabricated. Each of the 20 different sculptures in the series comes in five differently colored "unique versions", including the artist's cracked ''Egg (Blue)'' won the 2008 Charles Wollaston Award for the most distinguished work in the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...
's
Summer Exhibition
The Summer Exhibition is an open art exhibition held annually by the Royal Academy in Burlington House, Piccadilly in central London, England, during the months of June, July, and August. The exhibition includes paintings, prints, drawings, sc ...
. The ''Diamond'' pieces were created between 1994 and 2005, made of shiny stainless steel seven-feet wide. Created in an edition of five versions, his later work ''Tulips'' (1995–2004) consists of a bouquet of multicolor balloon flowers blown up to gargantuan proportions (more than tall and across). Koons finally started to work on ''Balloon Flower'' in 1995.
Koons was pushing to finish the series in time for a 1996 exhibition at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
in New York, but the show was ultimately canceled because of production delays and cost overruns. When "Celebration" funding ran out, the staff was laid off, leaving a skeleton crew of two: Gary McCraw, Koons' studio manager, who had been with him since 1990, and Justine Wheeler, an artist from South Africa, who had arrived in 1995 and eventually took charge of the sculpture operation. The artist convinced his primary collectors
Dakis Joannou
Dakis Joannou (Leonidas Ioannou; el, Δάκης Ιωάννου; born December 30, 1939) is a Greek Cypriot industrialist and art collector. He is considered to be one of the leading collectors of contemporary art in the world and is famous for a ...
,
Peter Brant, and
Eli Broad
Eli Broad ( ; June 6, 1933April 30, 2021) was an American businessman and philanthropist. In June 2019, '' Forbes'' ranked him as the 233rd-wealthiest person in the world and the 78th-wealthiest in the United States, with an estimated net worth o ...
, along with dealers Jeffrey Deitch,
Anthony d'Offay
Georges Anthony d'Offay (born January 1940) is a British art dealer, collector and curator. His was born to a Seychellois father.
Life and career
Georges Anthony d'Offay was born in January 1940 in Sheffield to a French father.
He began dealin ...
, and
Max Hetzler, to invest heavily in the costly fabrication of the ''Celebration'' series at Southern California-based
Carlson & Company (including his ''
Balloon Dog
Balloon Dog is a series of sculptures by Jeff Koons.
The Broad in Los Angeles has a copy of ''Balloon Dog (Blue)''.
In 2013, ''Balloon Dog (Orange)'' sold at Christie's for $58.4 million.
References
Collection of The Broad
Sculptures by ...
'' and ''Moon'' series),
[Jori Finkel]
"At the Ready When Artists Think Big,"
''The New York Times'', April 27, 2008. Accessed April 15, 2019.[Paul Young]
"Those Fabulous Fabricators and Their Finish Fetish,"
''L.A. Weekly'', January 9, 2008. Accessed April 15, 2019. and later, at Arnold, a
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...
-based company. The dealers funded the project in part by selling works to collectors before they were fabricated. In 1999, his 1988 "Pink Panther" sculpture sold at auction for US$1.8 million, and he returned to the Sonnabend gallery. Well aware of Koons' bottomless needs and demands, Ileana Sonnabend and Antonio Homem, her gallery director and adopted son, nevertheless welcomed him back; in all likelihood they sensed (correctly, it turned out) that he was poised for a glorious second act—something that only he, among his generation of overpublicized artists, has so far managed to pull off. Koons, however, no longer confines himself to a single gallery. Larry Gagosian, the colossus of New York dealers, agreed to finance the completion of all the unfinished "Celebration" work, in exchange for exclusive rights to sell it.
In 2006, Koons presented ''Hanging Heart'', a 9-foot-tall highly polished, steel heart, one of a series of five differently colored examples, part of his ''Celebration'' series.
["Jeff Koon's Hanging Heart Sets Record At Auction"](_blank)
, Culturekiosque, 15 November 2007. Large sculptures from that series were exhibited at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...
in New York in 2008. Later additions to the series include ''Balloon Swan'' (2004–2011), an 11.5-foot (3.5-meter), stainless-steel bird, ''Balloon Rabbit'' (2005–2010), and ''Balloon Monkey'', all for which children's party favors are reconceived as mesmerizing monumental forms.
[Jeff Koons: New Paintings and Sculpture, May 9 – June 29, 2013](_blank)
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
, New York.
The series also includes, in addition to sculptures, sixteen
[Jeff Koons: Cracked Egg (Blue), October 2 – December 22, 2006](_blank)
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
, London. oil paintings.
[Jeff Koons's giant Easter Egg with bow in Boijmans, 22 February 2012 – 2015](_blank)
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
''Easyfun'' and ''Easyfun-Ethereal''
Commissioned by the
Deutsche Guggenheim in 1999, Koons created the first seven paintings of the new series, ''Easyfun'', comprising paintings and wall-mounted sculptures.
[Jeff Koons: Easyfun-Ethereal, March 10 – April 21, 2018](_blank)
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
, New York. In 2001, Koons undertook a series of paintings, ''Easyfun-Ethereal'', using a collage approach that combined bikinis, food, and landscapes painted under his supervision by assistants. The series eventually expanded to twenty-four paintings.
''Split-Rocker''
In 2000, Koons designed ''Split-Rocker'', his second floral sculpture made of stainless steel, soil, geotextile fabric, and an internal irrigation system, which was first shown at the
Palais des Papes
The Palais des Papes ( English: Palace of the Popes; ''lo Palais dei Papas'' in Occitan) is a historical palace located in Avignon, Southern France. It is one of the largest and most important medieval Gothic buildings in Europe. Once a fortress ...
in
Avignon
Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. Located on the left bank of the river Rhône, the commune ha ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
. Like ''Puppy'', it is covered with around 27,000 live flowers,
[Miranda S. Spivack (June 24, 2013)]
Rales family unveils plans for major new Glenstone museum in Potomac
''Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...
''. including
petunia
''Petunia'' is genus of 20 species of flowering plants of South American origin. The popular flower of the same name derived its epithet from the French, which took the word ''petun'', meaning "tobacco," from a Tupi–Guarani language. A tende ...
s,
begonia
''Begonia'' is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Begoniaceae. The genus contains more than 2,000 different plant species. The Begonias are native to moist subtropical and tropical climates. Some species are commonly grown ind ...
s,
impatiens
''Impatiens'' is a genus of more than 1,000 species of flowering plants, widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics. Together with the genus '' Hydrocera'' (one species), ''Impatiens'' make up the family Balsaminace ...
,
geranium
''Geranium'' is a genus of 422 species of annual, biennial, and perennial plants that are commonly known as geraniums or cranesbills. They are found throughout the temperate regions of the world and the mountains of the tropics, but mostly i ...
s and
marigolds.
[Carol Vogel (May 29, 2014)]
A Jeff Koons Sculpture Is Coming to 30 Rock
''The New York Times''. Weighing 150 tons and soaring over 37 feet high, ''Split-Rocker'' is composed of two halves: one based on a toy pony of one of Koons' sons, the other based on a toy dinosaur. Together, they form the head of a giant child's rocker. Koons produced just two editions of the sculpture. As of 2014, he owns one of them;
the other is displayed at
Glenstone
Glenstone is a private contemporary art museum in Potomac, Maryland, from downtown Washington, D.C. The museum's exhibitions are drawn from a collection of about 1,300 works from post-World War II artists around the world. It is the largest priva ...
in Maryland.
At Glenstone, ''Split-Rocker'' is in bloom from mid-May to mid-October, and requires daily caretaking during that period. In summer 2014 ''Split-Rocker'' was installed at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City for several months in coincidence with the opening of Koons' retrospective at the
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
.
''Popeye'' and ''Hulk Elvis'' series
Paintings and sculptures from the ''Popeye'' series, which Koons began in 2002, feature the cartoon figures of
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar.[Olive Oyl
Olive Oyl is a cartoon character created by E. C. Segar in 1919 for his comic strip '' Thimble Theatre''. The strip was later renamed ''Popeye'' after the sailor character that became the most popular member of the cast; however, Olive Oyl was ...](_blank)
. One such item is a stainless steel reproduction of a mass-market
PVC Popeye figurine. The artist will also make use of inflatable animals again, this time in combination with ladders, trashcans and fences. To create these sculptures, the toys get a layer of coating after finding the right shape. Then a hard copy is made and sent to the foundry to be cast in aluminium. Back in the studio the sculptures are painted in order to achieve the shiny look of the original inflatables. For these surrealist installations, ''Acrobat'' in particular, Koons got inspiration from the Chicago Imagist
H.C. Westermann
H. C. Westermann (Horace Clifford "Cliff" Westermann) (December 11, 1922 – November 3, 1981) was an American sculptor and printmaker. His sculptures frequently incorporated traditional carpentry and marquetry techniques. From the late 1950 ...
. The Popeye sculpture was purchased by billionaire
Steve Wynn
Stephen Alan Wynn ('' né'' Weinberg; born January 27, 1942) is an American real estate developer and art collector. He is known for his involvement in the American luxury casino and hotel industry. Early in his career he oversaw the constructio ...
for $28 million and it is displayed outside the casino entrance at Wynn's
Encore Boston Harbor hotel and casino property.
''Hulk Elvis'' is a work series by Jeff Koons created between 2004 and 2014. The works range from precision-machined
bronze sculptures—inspired by an
inflatable
An inflatable is an object that can be inflated with a gas, usually with air, but hydrogen, helium and nitrogen are also used. One of several advantages of an inflatable is that it can be stored in a small space when not inflated, since infla ...
of the popular
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. ...
hero and extruded in three dimensions—to large-scale
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...
s. The work series’ title combines the popular comic book hero
Hulk with the
pop icon
A pop icon is a celebrity, character, or object whose exposure in popular culture is regarded as constituting a defining characteristic of a given society or era. The usage of the term is largely subjective since there are no definitively object ...
Elvis. The triple image of the Hulk figure recalls
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
's
silk-screen printing
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...
''
Triple Elvis
''Triple Elvis'' is a 1963 painting of Elvis Presley by the American artist Andy Warhol. The photographic image of Elvis used by Warhol as a basis for this work, taken from a publicity still from the movie ''Flaming Star'', has become iconic an ...
'' (1963), regarding both the multiplication and the posture of the Hulk figure.
According to the artist, the ''Hulk Elvis'' series with its strong, heroic image of the
Hulk represents "a very high-
testosterone
Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteris ...
body of work".
Koons also perceives the series as "a bridge between East and West" since a parallel might be drawn between the comic book hero Hulk and Asian guardian Gods.
The three-dimensional works ''Hulk (Friends)'' and ''Hulks (Bell)'' (both 2004–2012) feature apparently inflatable
Incredible Hulks that actually weigh almost a ton each and are made of bronze and wood.
[Catherine Hickley (June 25, 2012)]
Jeff Koons Fashions Venus's Buttocks in Shiny Steel
''Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and ...
''. The sculpture ''Hulk (Organ)'' (2004–2014) includes a fully functional
musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...
whose potential deep sounds match the figure's powerful and masculine appearance.
The series’ paintings are
collages made of several
photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in ras ...
layers. The images range from abstract landscapes to elements of American
iconography
Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...
(trains, horses, carriages) and comprise characters such as the Hulk or an inflatable plastic
monkey
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incom ...
.
The
landscape painting
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent com ...
s often have explicit or implicit sexual content. For example, a recurrent crude line drawing of a
vulva
The vulva (plural: vulvas or vulvae; derived from Latin for wrapper or covering) consists of the external female sex organs. The vulva includes the mons pubis (or mons veneris), labia majora, labia minora, clitoris, vestibular bulbs, v ...
refers to
Courbets ''
L’Origine du Monde'' (1866)''.''
The ''Hulk Elvis'' series has been exhibited at a number of international art venues such as the
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
in London (2007), the
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
in Hong Kong, China (2014) and the
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, Austria (2015).
''Antiquity'' series
Referring to the ancient Roman marble statue
Callipygian Venus, ''Metallic Venus'' (2010–2012) was made of high chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating and live flowering plants.
At the center of each scene in the ''Antiquity'' paintings (2009–2013) is a famous ancient or classical sculpture, meticulously rendered in oil paint and scaled to the same size as the sculptures. The equally detailed backdrops include an
Arcadian vision.
In ''Ballerinas'' (2010–2014), Koons depicts figurines of dancers, derived from decorative porcelain works designed by Ukrainian artist
Oksana Zhnikrup, at the imposing scale of classical sculpture.
Recent work
For the 2007–2008 season in the
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August ...
Jeff Koons designed the large-scale picture (176 sqm) ''Geisha'' as part of the exhibition series "Safety Curtain", conceived by
museum in progress.
["Safety Curtain 2007/2008"](_blank)
museum in progress, Vienna. Koons worked with American
pop
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop!, a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Albums
* ''Pop'' (G ...
performer
Lady Gaga
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...
on her 2013 studio album ''
Artpop'', including the creation of its cover artwork featuring a sculpture he made of Lady Gaga.
In September 2014 the bi-annual arts and culture publication GARAGE Magazine published Jeff Koons' first ever digital artwork for the front of its print edition. The piece, titled ''Lady Bug'', is an
augmented reality
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory Modality (human–computer interaction), modalities, including visual, Hearing, auditory, hap ...
sculpture that can only be viewed on mobile devices through a GARAGE Magazine app, which allows viewers to explore the piece from a variety of angles as if standing on top of it.
In 2012, Koons bought Advanced Stone Technologies, an offshoot of the non-profit
Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture
Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
's stone division. He moved the high-tech stone workshop from New Jersey to a larger, space in
Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Morrisville (, ) is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located just below the falls of the Delaware River opposite Trenton, New Jersey. The population was 8,728 at the 2010 census.
Morrisville is located southeast ...
. The facility exists solely to fabricate Koons' works made of stone.
In 2013 Koons created the sculpture ''Gazing Ball (Farnese Hercules),'' which was inspired by the ''
Farnese Hercules
The ''Farnese Hercules'' ( it, Ercole Farnese) is an ancient statue of Hercules, probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD and signed by Glykon, who is otherwise unknown; the name is Greek but he may have worked in Rome. Like ...
.''
The sculpture is made from white plaster and can be interpreted as perpetuating colorism in how we view the ancient world.
Other projects
In 1999 Koons commissioned a song about himself on
Momus' album ''
Stars Forever''.
A drawing similar to his ''Tulip Balloons'' was placed on the front page of the Internet search engine
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
. The drawing greeted all who visited Google's main page on April 30, 2008, and May 1, 2008.
In 2006 Koons appeared on ''
Artstar
''Artstar'' is an unscripted reality television series set in the New York City art world, considered to be the first in the visual arts. Selected from an open call of over 400 applicants, eight artists participate in a group exhibition at Deitch ...
'', an unscripted television series set in the New York art world. He had a minor role in the 2008 film ''
Milk
Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulati ...
'' playing state assemblyman
Art Agnos.
In September 2012 New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cu ...
gave Koons the task of helping to review the designs for a new
Tappan Zee Bridge.
In late 2016 Koons unveiled plans for ''
Bouquet of Tulips
''Bouquet of Tulips'' is a metal sculpture by American artist Jeff Koons, which is located outside the Petit Palais in Paris, France. It is one of Koons’s largest sculptures, and his first commemorative work. The sculpture was first announced in ...
'', an 11-meter high commemorative sculpture in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
modelled on the
Statue of Liberty, honoring the victims of the
November 2015 attacks.
Curating
Koons acted as curator of an
Ed Paschke exhibition at
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
, New York, in 2009. He also curated an exhibition in 2010 of works from the private collection of Greek billionaire
Dakis Joannou
Dakis Joannou (Leonidas Ioannou; el, Δάκης Ιωάννου; born December 30, 1939) is a Greek Cypriot industrialist and art collector. He is considered to be one of the leading collectors of contemporary art in the world and is famous for a ...
at the
New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...
in New York City. The exhibition,
Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection, generated debate concerning
cronyism
Cronyism is the spoils system practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. For example, cronyism occurs when appointi ...
within the art world as Koons is heavily collected by Joannou and had previously designed the exterior of Joannou's yacht ''Guilty''.
BMW Art Car
Koons was the artist named to design the seventeenth in the series of
BMW "Art Cars". His artwork was applied to a race-spec
E92 BMW M3, and revealed to the public at
The Pompidou Centre in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
on 2 June 2010. Backed by
BMW Motorsport
BMW M Motorsport (formerly BMW Motorsport) is the division of BMW responsible for motorsport-related activities, including works-run competition programmes in touring car racing, sports car racing, motorcycle racing and Formula E.
The current o ...
, the car then competed at the
2010 24 Hours of Le Mans
The 78th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: ''78e 24 Heures du Mans'') was a non-championship 24-hour automobile endurance race for Le Mans Prototype (LMP) and Grand Touring (GT) cars held from 12 to 13 June 2010 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, near L ...
in France.
Collaborations
In 1989, Koons and fellow artist
Martin Kippenberger
Martin Kippenberger (25 February 1953 – 7 March 1997) was a German artist known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media, superfiction as well as his provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona.
Kippenb ...
worked together on an issue of the art journal ''
Parkett''; the following year, Koons designed an exhibition poster for Kippenberger.
In 2013, Koons collaborated with American singer-songwriter and performance artist
Lady Gaga
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...
for her third studio album, ''
ARTPOP''. The album cover depicts a nude sculpture of Gaga made by Koons behind a blue ball sculpture, and pieces of other art works in the background such as ''
Birth of Venus'' painted by
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered ...
, which inspired Gaga's image through the new era, including in her music video for "
Applause
Applause (Latin ''applaudere,'' to strike upon, clap) is primarily a form of ovation or praise expressed by the act of clapping, or striking the palms of the hands together, in order to create noise. Audiences usually applaud after a performa ...
" and the performance of the song at the
2013 MTV Video Music Awards
The 2013 MTV Video Music Awards were held on August 25, 2013, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Marking the 30th installment of the award show, they were the first to be held in New York City not to use a venue within the borough of M ...
. The image of the cover was revealed piece-by-piece in a social marketing campaign where her fans had to tweet the Twitter hashtag "#iHeartARTPOP" to unlock it. The song "Applause" itself includes the lyrics "One second I'm a Koons, then suddenly the Koons is me."
In April 2017, Jeff Koons collaborated with the French luxury fashion house
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French high-end luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its products, ranging from luxury bags and lea ...
for the 'Masters Collection' and designed a series of handbags and backpacks featuring the reproductions of his favorite masterpieces by the Old Masters, such as
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially re ...
,
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, n ...
,
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
,
Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradit ...
and
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732
(birth/baptism certificate)
– 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific ar ...
. Later this year he presented another handful of bags and accessories featuring the reproductions of works by
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
,
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...
,
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bor ...
,
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
and
François Boucher
François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...
. The prices range from $585 for a key chain to $4,000 for the large carryall.
Wine
Koons has also produced some fine
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are ...
-related commissions. In December 2012,
Chateau Mouton Rothschild announced that Koons was the artist for their 2010 vintage label – a tradition that was started in 1946. Other artists to design labels include
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is ...
,
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
,
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in ...
and
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...
, amongst others. In August 2013,
Dom Pérignon
Dom Pérignon (; ) is a brand of vintage Champagne. It is named after Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk who was an important quality pioneer for Champagne wine but who, contrary to popular myths, did not discover the Champagne method for making ...
released their 2004 vintage, with a special edition done by Koons, as well as a made-to-order case called the 'Balloon Venus'. This has a recommended retail price of €15,000.
Charity
From February 15 to March 6, 2008, Koons donated a private tour of his studio to the
Hereditary Disease Foundation for auction on
Charitybuzz. From his limited-edition 2010 ''Tulip'' designs for
Kiehl's Crème de Corps, a portion of the proceeds went to the Koons Family Institute, an initiative of the
International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children
The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, with a regional presence in Brazil, Singapore, and Australia, is a private 501(c)(3) non-governmental, nonprofit global organization. It ...
.
Since his relationship with the International Centre began, Koons has given over US$4.3 million to the Institute that bears his family's name.
Exhibitions
Since a 1980 window installation at the
New Museum of Contemporary Art
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...
in New York, Koons' work has been widely exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions. In 1986, he appeared in a group show with
Peter Halley,
Ashley Bickerton,
Ross Minoru Lang Ross or ROSS may refer to:
People
* Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan
* Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning
* Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland
Places
* RoSS, the Republic of Sout ...
and Meyer Vaisman at
Sonnabend Gallery in New York. In 1997, the parisian Galerie Jerome de Noirmont organized his first solo show in Europe. His ''Made in Heaven'' series was first shown at the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
in 1990.
As a young artist, Koons was included in many exhibitions curated by
Richard Milazzo including ''The New Capital'' at White Columns in 1984, ''Paravision'' at Postmasters Gallery in 1985, ''Cult and Decorum'' at Tibor De Nagy Gallery in 1986, ''Time After Time'' at Diane Brown Gallery in 1986, ''Spiritual America'' at CEPA in 1986, and ''Art at the End of the Social'' at The Rooseum, Malmö, Sweden in 1988. These exhibitions would be alongside other notable artists such as
Ross Bleckner
Ross Bleckner (born May 12, 1949) is an American artist. He currently lives and works in New York City. His artistic focus is on painting, and he held his first solo exhibition in 1975. Some of his art work reflected on the AIDS epidemic.
Early ...
,
Joel Otterson, and
Kevin Larmon.
His museum solo shows include the
Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to:
Africa
* Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi
Asia East Asia
* Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...
in Chicago (1988),
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...
in Minneapolis (1993),
Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (2000),
Kunsthaus Bregenz (2001), the
Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli (2003), and a retrospective survey at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2004), which traveled to the
Helsinki City Art Museum
Helsinki Art Museum ( fi, Helsingin taidemuseo, sv, Helsingfors konstmuseum), abbreviated as HAM, is an art museum in Helsinki, Finland. It is located in Tennispalatsi in Kamppi. The museum reopened after renovations and rebranding (as HAM) in ...
(2005). In 2008, the Celebration series was shown at the
Neue Nationalgalerie
The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its ...
, Berlin, and on the roof of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 100 ...
.
Considered as his first retrospective in France, the 2008 exhibition of 17 Koons sculptures at the
Château de Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed ...
also marked the first ambitious display of a contemporary American artist organized by the château. ''The New York Times'' reported that “several dozen people demonstrated outside the palace gates” in a protest arranged by a little-known, right-wing group dedicated to French artistic purity. It was also criticized that ninety percent of the US$2.8 million in financing for the exhibition came from private patrons, mainly
François Pinault
François Pinault (born 21 August 1936) is a French billionaire businessman, founder of the luxury group Kering and the investment holding company Artémis.
Pinault started his business in the timber industry in the early 1960s. Taken public i ...
.
The May 31 – September 21, 2008 Koons retrospective at the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contempora ...
,
which was widely publicized in the press, broke the museum's attendance record with 86,584 visitors. The exhibition included numerous works from the MCA collection, along with recent paintings and sculptures by the artist. The retrospective exhibition reflects the MCA's commitment to Koons' work as it presented the artist's first American survey in 1988. For the final exhibition in its
Marcel Breuer
Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981), was a Hungarian-born modernist architect and furniture designer.
At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair, which ''The New York Times'' have called some of the most ...
building, the
Whitney Museum
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude ...
is planning to present a Koons retrospective in collaboration with the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's or ...
and the
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
, Paris.
In July 2009, Koons had his first major solo show in London, at the
Serpentine Gallery
The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery ...
. Entitled ''Jeff Koons: Popeye Series'', the exhibit included cast aluminum models of children's pool toys and "dense, realist paintings of
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar.[spinach
Spinach (''Spinacia oleracea'') is a leafy green flowering plant native to central and western Asia. It is of the order Caryophyllales, family Amaranthaceae, subfamily Chenopodioideae. Its leaves are a common edible vegetable consumed eith ...](_blank)
or smoking his pipe, a red lobster looming over his head".
In May 2012, Koons had his first major solo show in Switzerland, at the
Beyeler Museum
The Beyeler Foundation or Fondation Beyeler with its museum in Riehen, near Basel (Switzerland), owns and oversees the art collection of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler, which features modern and traditional art. The Beyeler Foundation museum includes a s ...
in
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS) ...
, entitled ''Jeff Koons''. Shown are works from three series: ''The New'',''Banality'' and ''Celebration'' as well as the flowered sculpture ''Split-Rocker''.
Also in 2012, ''Jeff Koons. The Painter'' at
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
The Schirn Kunsthalle is a Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany, located in the old city between the Römer and the Frankfurt Cathedral. The Schirn exhibits both modern and contemporary art. It is the main venue for temporary art exhibitions i ...
focussed primarily on the artist's development as a painter, while in the show ''Jeff Koons. The Sculptor'' at the
Liebieghaus
The Liebieghaus is a late 19th-century villa in Frankfurt, Germany. It contains a sculpture museum, the ''Städtische Galerie Liebieghaus'', which is part of the Museumsufer on the Sachsenhausen bank of the River Main. Max Hollein was the di ...
in
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...
, the sculptures by Jeff Koons entered enter into dialogues with the historical building and a sculpture collection spanning five millennia.
Together, both shows form the largest showing of Koons' work to date.
The artist enjoyed a 2014 retrospective at the
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
in New York. Scott Indrisek, writing for ARTINFO.com, described it as "brash, fairly entertaining, and as digestible as a pack of
M&Ms".
In 2019 an exhibition called ''Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean'' was held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, United Kingdom.
Recognition
Koons received the BZ Cultural Award from the City of
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
in 2000 and the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture in 2001. He was named a Chevalier of the
French Legion of Honor
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...
in 2002 and then promoted to Officier in 2007.
He received an honoroary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. He was given the 2008 Wollaston Award from the
Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...
in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
In 2013 he received the
U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
's Medal of Arts. In 2014, Koons received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...
presented by Awards Council member
Wayne Thiebaud
Morton Wayne Thiebaud ( ; November 15, 1920 – December 25, 2021) was an American painter known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his la ...
during the International Achievement Summit in San Francisco. In 2017 he accepted the annual Honorary Membership Award for Outstanding Contribution to Visual Culture from the
Edgar Wind Society,
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...
.
Art market
Koons is widely collected in America and Europe, where some collectors acquire his work in depth.
Eli Broad
Eli Broad ( ; June 6, 1933April 30, 2021) was an American businessman and philanthropist. In June 2019, '' Forbes'' ranked him as the 233rd-wealthiest person in the world and the 78th-wealthiest in the United States, with an estimated net worth o ...
has 24 pieces, and
Dakis Joannou
Dakis Joannou (Leonidas Ioannou; el, Δάκης Ιωάννου; born December 30, 1939) is a Greek Cypriot industrialist and art collector. He is considered to be one of the leading collectors of contemporary art in the world and is famous for a ...
owns some 38 works from all stages of the artist's career.
Koons has been represented by dealers such as
Mary Boone
Mary Boone (born c. 1951/1952) is an American art dealer and collector.
Life
Boone moved to New York City at the age of 19 from Erie, Pennsylvania to a working class family of Egyptian immigrants. She studied Art History at Rhode Island School o ...
(1979–1980),
Sonnabend Gallery (1986–2021),
Galerie Max Hetzler, Jérôme de Noirmont and
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
. The exclusive right to the primary sale of the "Celebration" series was long held by Gagosian Gallery, his dominant dealer for many years. Since 2021,
Pace Gallery
The Pace Gallery is an American contemporary and modern art, modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, L ...
has been representing Koons exclusively worldwide.
[Robin Pogrebin (April 26, 2021)]
Jeff Koons Moves to Pace Gallery
''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''.
Many of Koons' works have been sold privately at auctions. His auction records have primarily been achieved from his sculptures (especially those from his Celebration series), whereas his paintings are less popular. In 2001, one of his three ''Michael Jackson and Bubbles'' porcelain sculptures sold for US$5.6 million. On November 14, 2007, ''Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold)'' from the collection of Adam Lindemann, one of five in different colors, sold at
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
New York for US$23.6 million becoming, at the time, the most expensive piece by a living artist ever auctioned.
It was bought by the
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
in New York, which the previous day had purchased another Koons sculpture, ''Diamond (Blue)'', for US$11.8 million from
Christie's
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, t ...
London.
[David Segal (November 14, 2007)]
Reflective Surface
''The Washington Post''. Accessed September 2013. Gagosian appears to have bought both Celebration series works on behalf of Ukrainian steel oligarch
Victor Pinchuk. In July 2008, his 11-foot (3.3 meter) ''Balloon Flower (Magenta)'' (1995–2000) from the collection of Howard and Cindy Rachofsky also sold at Christie's London for an auction record of US$25.7 million. In total, Koons was the top-selling artist at auction with €81.3 million of sales in the year to June 2008.
[Reyburn, Scott (December 29, 2009)]
"Koons, Hirst Prices Drop 50%; May Take Next Decade to Recover"
''Bloomberg''.
During the
late 2000s recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...
, however, art prices plummeted and auction sales of high-value works by Koons dropped 50 percent in 2009.
A violet ''Hanging Heart'' sold for US$11 million in a private sale. However prices for the artist's earlier Luxury and Degradation series appear to be holding up. ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econ ...
'' reported that
Thomas H. Lee, a private-equity investor, sold ''Jim Beam J.B. Turner Train'' (1986) in a package deal brokered by Giraud Pissarro Segalot for more than US$15 million. In 2012, ''Tulips'' (1995–2004) brought a record auction price for Koons at
Christie's
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, t ...
, selling to a telephone bidder for US$33.6 million, well above its high US$25 million estimate. At
Christie's
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, t ...
in 2015, the oil on canvas ''Triple Elvis'' (2009) set a world auction record for a painting by the artist, realizing $8,565,000, over $5 million more than the previous high. Koons's stainless steel ''
Rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit s ...
'' (1986) sold for $91.1 million at auction in 2019, making it
the most expensive work sold by a living artist at auction.
In 2018, art collector and billionaire
Steven Tananbaum brought a lawsuit against Koons and
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Pa ...
for failing to deliver three sculptures, ''Balloon Venus'', ''Eros'' and ''Diana,'' for which he paid $13 million. Soon after, Hollywood producer
Joel Silver
Joel Silver (born July 14, 1952) is an American film producer.
Life and career
Silver was born and raised in South Orange, New Jersey, the son of a writer and a public relations executive. His family is Jewish. He attended Columbia High Schoo ...
filed a similar lawsuit against Gagosion and Koons for failure to deliver an $8 million sculpture in 2014. Both lawsuits were settled in 2019 and 2020.
Classification
Among
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
s and Private collection, art collectors and others in the art world, Koons' work is labeled as Neo-pop or Post-Pop as part of a 1980s movement in reaction to the pared-down art of Minimalism and Conceptualism in the previous decade. Koons resists such comments: "A viewer might at first see irony in my work ... but I see none at all. Irony causes too much critical contemplation". Koons rejects any hidden meaning in his artwork.
He has caused controversy by the elevation of unashamed
kitsch
Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste.
The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation wi ...
into the high-art arena, exploiting more throwaway subjects than, for example, Warhol's ''Campbell's Soup Cans''. His work ''
Balloon Dog
Balloon Dog is a series of sculptures by Jeff Koons.
The Broad in Los Angeles has a copy of ''Balloon Dog (Blue)''.
In 2013, ''Balloon Dog (Orange)'' sold at Christie's for $58.4 million.
References
Collection of The Broad
Sculptures by ...
'' (1994–2000) is based on balloons twisted into shape to make a toy dog.
Theorist Samito Jalbuena wrote, "From the beginning of his controversial career, Koons overturned the traditional notion of art inside and out. Focusing on banal objects as models, he questioned standards of normative values in art, and, instead, embraced the vulnerabilities of aesthetic hierarchies and taste systems."
Evaluation and influence
Koons has received polarized reactions to his work. Critic Amy Dempsey described his ''
Balloon Dog
Balloon Dog is a series of sculptures by Jeff Koons.
The Broad in Los Angeles has a copy of ''Balloon Dog (Blue)''.
In 2013, ''Balloon Dog (Orange)'' sold at Christie's for $58.4 million.
References
Collection of The Broad
Sculptures by ...
'' as "an awesome presence... a massive durable monument". Jerry Saltz at ''artnet.com'' has commented on being "wowed by the technical virtuosity and eye-popping visual blast" of Koons' art. Koons was among the names in Blake Gopnik's 2011 list "The 10 Most Important Artists of Today", with Gopnik arguing, "Even after 30 years, Koons's mashups of high and low—a dog knotted from balloons, then enlarged into a public monument; a life-size bust of Michael Jackson and his chimp in gold-and-white porcelain—still feel significant."
Mark Stevens of ''The New Republic'' dismissed him as a "decadent artist [who] lacks the imaginative will to do more than trivialize and italicize his themes and the tradition in which he works... He is another of those who serve the tacky rich". Michael Kimmelman of ''The New York Times'' saw "one last, pathetic gasp of the sort of self-promoting hype and sensationalism that characterized the worst of the 1980s" and called Koons' work "artificial", "cheap", and "unabashedly cynical".
In an article comparing the contemporary art scene with show business, renowned critic Robert Hughes (critic), Robert Hughes wrote that Koons is
an extreme and self-satisfied manifestation of the sanctimony that attaches to big bucks. Koons really does think he's Michelangelo and is not shy to say so. The significant thing is that there are collectors, especially in America, who believe it. He has the slimy assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida. And the result is that you can't imagine America's singularly depraved culture without him.
Hughes placed Koons' work just above that of John Seward Johnson II, Seward Johnson and was quoted in a ''New York Times'' article as having stated that comparing their careers was "like debating the merits of dog excrement versus cat excrement".
He has influenced younger artists such as Damien Hirst
(for example, in Hirst's ''Hymn'', an version of a anatomical toy), Jack Daws, Matthieu Laurette and Mona Hatoum. In turn, his extreme enlargement of mundane objects owes a debt to Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Much of his work also was influenced by artists working in Chicago during his study at the Art Institute, including Jim Nutt,
Ed Paschke, and H. C. Westermann.
In 2005, he was elected as a Fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Copyright infringement litigation
Koons has been sued several times for copyright infringement over his use of pre-existing images, the original works of others, in his work. In ''Rogers v. Koons'', 960 F.2d 301 (2d Cir. 1992), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a judgment against him for his use of a photograph of puppies as the basis for a sculpture, ''String of Puppies''.
Koons also lost lawsuits in ''United Features Syndicate, Inc. v. Koons'', 817 F. Supp. 370 (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, S.D.N.Y. 1993), and ''Campbell v. Koons'', No. 91 Civ. 6055, 1993 WL 97381 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 1, 1993).
He won one lawsuit, ''Blanch v. Koons'', No. 03 Civ. 8026 (LLS), S.D.N.Y., Nov. 1 2005 (slip op.), affirmed by the Second Circuit in October 2006, brought over his use of a photographic advertisement as source material for legs and feet in a painting, ''Niagara'' (2000). The court ruled that Koons had sufficiently transformed the original advertisement so as to qualify as a fair use of the original image.
In 2015, Koons faced allegations he used photographer Mitchel Gray's 1986 photo for
Gordon's Gin
Gordon's is a brand of London dry gin first produced in 1769. The top markets for Gordon's are the United Kingdom, the United States and Greece. It is owned by the British spirits company Diageo. It is the world's best-selling London dry gin. G ...
in one of his Luxury and Degradation paintings without permission or compensation.
In 2018, a French court ruled that his 1988 work ''Fait d'Hiver'', which depicts a pig standing over a woman who is lying on her back, had copied an advertisement for a clothing chain and found Koons and the Centre Pompidou guilty of infringing photographer Franck Davidovici's copyright.
[ This decision was upheld in 2021 on appeal. The result is that the work, owned by Foundazione Prada, cannot be displayed in France and the museum and artist cannot display photographic reproductions online (without a penalty of €600 per day). In addition, the museum and artist were ordered to jointly pay €190,000 and the book company €14,000.
In 2019, a French court ruled that his work 1988 ''Naked'', which depicts a little boy offering flowers to a little girl, both of whom are naked, had infringed on the copyright of a 1975 postcard photograph by French artist Jean-Francois Bauret.]
Koons has also accused others of copyright infringement, claiming that a bookstore in San Francisco infringed his copyright in ''Balloon Dogs'' by selling bookends in the shape of balloon dogs. Koons dropped the lawsuit after the bookstore's lawyer filed a motion for declaratory relief stating, "As virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain".
A Koons sculpture of a ballerina resembles the piece ''Ballerina Lenochka'' created by the Ukrainian artist :uk:Oksana Zhnykrup, Oksana Zhnykrup in 1974.
In a 2021 complaint filed at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, artist Michael Hayden who made a sculpture in 1988 of a serpent wrapped around a rock for Ilona Staller claimed that Koons unlawfully used the sculpture in his works.
ICMEC's Koons Family Institute on International Law and Policy
Koons is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children
The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, with a regional presence in Brazil, Singapore, and Australia, is a private 501(c)(3) non-governmental, nonprofit global organization. It ...
(ICMEC), a global nonprofit organization that combats child sexual exploitation, child pornography, and child abduction. In 2007, Koons, along with his wife Justine, founded the ICMEC Koons Family Institute on International Law and Policy.
Following the end of his first marriage in 1994 to Hungarian-born Italian actress Ilona Staller, Staller left for Italy with their two-year-old son in violation of a US court order.[Ingrid Sischy (July 2014]
"Jeff Koons Is Back!"
''Vanity Fair'' Koons spent five years pursuing his parental rights. The Court of Cassation (Italy), Italian Supreme Court ruled in favor of Staller. Koons subsequently established the Koons Family Institute. In 2008, Staller filed suit against Koons for failure to pay child support.
Personal life
While a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art
The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of t ...
, Koons fathered a daughter, Shannon Rodgers. The couple put the child up for adoption. Rodgers reconnected with Koons in 1995.
In 1991, he married Hungarian-born naturalized-Italian pornography star Ilona Staller (Cicciolina) who at the time was a member of the Italian Parliament (1987–1992). Koons collaborated with Staller for the "Made in Heaven" paintings and sculptures in various media, with the hopes of making a film. While maintaining a home in Manhattan, Koons and Staller lived in Munich. In 1992, they had a son, Ludwig. The marriage ended soon afterward amid allegations that Koons had subjected Staller to physical and emotional abuse.
Koons is currently married to Justine Wheeler, an artist and former employee who began working in Koons' studio in 1995. The couple have six children. The family currently lives in an Upper East Side townhouse.[Josh Barbanel (January 30, 2009)]
The Artist's Largest Work?
''The New York Times''.
Koons donated $50,000 to Correct the Record, a Super PAC which supported Hillary Clinton's Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016, 2016 presidential campaign in June 2016.
Film and video
* ''Jeff Koons: the Banality Work'' by Jeff Koons, Paul Tschinkel, Sarah Berry. Videorecording produced by Inner Tube Video and Sonnabend Gallery (New York, NY), 1990.
* His ''Balloon Dog (Red)'' sculpture was one of the artworks brought to life in the 2009 film ''Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian''.
*''The Price of Everything'', directed by Nathaniel Kahn and produced by Jennifer Blei Stockman, Debi Wisch, and Carla Solomon, and distributed by HBO Documentary Films, 2018.
Citations
General sources
* Bouvier, Raphael. Jeff Koons. Der Künstler als Täufer. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2012. ()
* Girod, Andre. ''American Gothic : Une mosaïque de personnalités américaines''. . . Article on Jeff Koons.
* Kimmelman, Michael. "Jeff Koons", ''The New York Times'', 29 November 1991.
* Koons, Jeff. ''The Jeff Koons Handbook''. New York: Rizzoli, 1993.
* Sciolino, Elaine
"At the Court of the Sun King, Some All-American Art"
''The New York Times'', 8 September 2008.
* Stevens, Mark. "Adventures in the Skin Trade", ''The New Republic'', 20 January 1992.
* Tomkins, Calvin
"The Turnaround Artist: Jeff Koons Up from Banality"
''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
'', 23 April 2007.
* Tully, Judd. "Jeff Koons' Raw Talent", ''The Washington Post'', 15 December 1991.
External links
*
*
*
In the Studio: Jeff Koons
at Tate Channel; some of Koons' work in progress at his studio. January 29, 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koons, Jeff
1955 births
20th-century American painters
20th-century American printmakers
20th-century American sculptors
20th-century American male artists
21st-century American painters
21st-century American male artists
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
American male painters
American male sculptors
American pop artists
Articles containing video clips
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy
Living people
Maryland Institute College of Art alumni
Painters from Pennsylvania
People from the Upper East Side
People from York, Pennsylvania
Postmodern artists
School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
Sculptors from New York (state)
Sculptors from Pennsylvania