Jeff Koons

Hello Everybody,

since we mentioned the name Jeff Koons in one of our classes I realized that I know almost nothing about an artist who is one of the most successful in our time. So, I have read some articles and I wanted to share the results of my research with you.

Jeff Koons by Harold Cunningham/Getty Images Website Vanity Fair

Jeff Koons is one of the most famous contemporary artists alive and undeniably one of the most polarizing. Born in Pennsylvania in 1955, Koons moved to New York after receiving his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. In 1980, he had his first solo exhibition in New York and since then he can be seen as “something of an art-world boy wonder” (The Guardian 2018).

Since an auction in November 2012, where Christie's sold of one of his Balloon Dogs (Orange) for US$58.4, Koon’s work became the most expensive work by a living artist ever sold at auctions. 

Ballon Dog (Orange)
mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent color coating
121 x 143 x 45 inches 
307.3 x 363.2 x 114.3 cm 
© Jeff Koons
5 unique versions (Blue, Magenta, Yellow, Orange, Red)
1994-2000

Puppy 

stainless steel, wood (at Arolsen only)

, soil, geotextile fabric, internal irrigation system,

live flowering plants 

486 x 486 x 256 inches 

1234.4 x 1234.4 x 650.2 cm 

© Jeff Koons 1992

The 63 years old American artist is widely known for his iconic monumental sculptures, such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces (for instance Rabbit, Balloon Dog and Puppy). In his work he satirizes objects of consumer and popular culture society, for example by making trinket figures or rococo figures in ceramics. As a form of presentation, he chooses the imitation or alienation of the objects which he selected partly from the field of advertising or porn industry. By playing with objects from everyday life and ‘kitsch culture’ he created an artistic transition and a crossing between art and ‘kitsch’.

Micheal Jackson and Bubbles
porcelain, 42 x 70 1/2 x 32 1/2 inches 
106.7 x 179.1 x 82.6 cm 
© Jeff Koons
Edition of 3 plus AP 
1988

I found a very interesting article on Koons and his work in which the author claims that Marcel Duchamp ‘begat’ Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, who begat Andy Warhol, who begat Jeff Koons. I think it is a very reasonable thought to see Marcel Duchamp - who roughly a hundred years ago produced his first Readymades – as an ‘ancestor’ of Jeff Koons. Furthermore, there are some facts that could link Andy Warhol and Koons to one another, for instance, the presentation of work under an assortment of series and brand names or the work in a ‘factory’…

Jeff Koons in his Studio in Chelsea, New York

I am not sure what to think about Koon's art myself, I do not find it exceedingly beautiful or that much aesthetic but I am in a sense fascinated by how the art world functions and why Koon's art became so popular and so expensive, even if he is not even producing all of it with his own hands...

I recommend the article "Jeff Koons: ‘People respond to banal things – they don’t accept their own history’”, by Emma Brockes, published in The Guardian, in June 2015. The author discusses the question “Are the critics right to dismiss his work as ‘smug’ and ‘baloney’, or is he justified in saying it teaches us a vital lesson about materialism?”.

I wish all of you a brilliant weekend,

Joana da Silva Duering N° 152336

Sources

• http://www.jeffkoons.com 
• Pearl, Jed. The Cult of Jeff Koons, The New York Review of Books 25. September 2014. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/09/25/cult-jeff-koons/ (Accessed 24. May 2018).
• Nevins, Jake. Jeff Koons: 'I Think I'll always keep feeling somewhat like an outsider', The Guardian 09. March 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/mar/09/jeff-koons-i-think-ill-always-keep-feeling-somewhat-like-an-outsider (Accessed 24.May 2018).