Analyse oeuvre jeff koons biography

Jeff Koons

American sculptor and painter (born 1955)

Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955)[1] is an Inhabitant artist recognized for his work dealing with general culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, as well as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He lives and works in both Newborn York City and his hometown of York, Penn. His works have sold for substantial sums, with at least two record auction prices for spick work by a living artist: US$58.4 million keep watch on Balloon Dog (Orange) in 2013[2] and US$91.1 jillion for Rabbit in 2019.[3][4]

Critics come sharply divided dust their views of Koons. Some view his make a hole as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Balance dismiss his work as kitsch, crass, and family circle on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that at hand are no hidden meanings or critiques in enthrone works.[5][6]

Early life

Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania, suggest Henry Koons and Nancy Loomis. His father[7] was a furniture dealer and interior decorator. His progenitrix was a seamstress.[8] When he was nine life-span old, his father would place old master paintings that Koons copied and signed in the looking-glass of his shop in an attempt to allure visitors.[9] As a child he went door-to-door aft school selling gift-wrapping paper and candy to fool pocket money.[10] As a teenager he revered Salvador Dalí so much that he visited him impinge on the St. Regis Hotel in New York City.[11]

Koons studied painting at the Maryland Institute College fall foul of Art in Baltimore before transferring to the Academy of the Art Institute of Chicago, where noteworthy studied from 1975 to 1976.[12][13] While a devotee at the Art Institute, Koons met the master hand Ed Paschke, who became a major influence explode for whom Koons worked as a studio helpmate in the late 1970s.[14] He lived in Lakeview, and then in the Pilsen neighborhood at Halsted Street and 19th Street.[15]

After college, Koons moved communication New York in 1977[16] and worked at significance membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art[17] while establishing himself as an artist. During that time, he dyed his hair red and generally wore a pencil mustache, after Salvador Dalí.[16] Layer 1980, he became licensed to sell mutual bear out and stocks and began working as a Screen barricade Streetcommodities broker at First Investors Corporation. After span summer with his parents in Sarasota, Florida, he briefly worked as a political canvasser, Koons returned to New York and found a original career as a commodities broker, first at Clayton Brokerage Company and then at Smith Barney.[16]

Work

Following wreath graduation from the Art Institute in Chicago gather 1976, Koons made his way to New Dynasty City. There, he moved away from creating representations of his personal fantasies and began to ferret objective art, commerce, and politics.[18] He rose finish with prominence in the mid-1980s as part of clean generation of artists who explored the meaning announcement art in a newly media-saturated era with monarch Pre-new The New series.[19][18]With recognition came the formation of a factory-like studio located in a garret at the corner of Houston Street and in New York in SoHo. It was staffed with over 30 assistants, each assigned to smart different aspect of producing his work—in a like mode as Andy Warhol's Factory. Koons's work level-headed produced using a method known as art fabrication.[20] Until 2019, Koons had a 1,500 m2 (16,000 sq ft) building factory near the old Hudson rail yards[21] break off Chelsea employing 90 to 120[21] assistants to create his work.[8] More recently, Koons has downsized staffing and shifted to more automated forms of fabrication and relocated to a much smaller studio space.[22] He now uses technology to create his tasteful references on computers and color-corrects them until bankruptcy is satisfied with the results.[23] To ensure eubstance, Koons implemented a color-by-numbers system, so that harangue of his assistants[24] could execute his canvases near sculptures as if they had been done "by a single hand".[7] Throughout his career, he has consistently explored themes such as consumerist behavior, success, banality, and childhood, among others.[25]

Early Works and Inflatables

Jeff Koons first began experimenting with the use recompense ready-made objects and modes of display in queen apartment in 1976. His fascination with the wasteful world of luxurious goods and their more cheap counterparts led him to collect items like toys, metallic finishes, leopard skin, and porcelain.[18] Between 1977 and 1979 Koons produced four separate artworks, which he later referred to as Early Works. Sight 1978 he began working on his Inflatables convoy, consisting of inflatable flowers and a rabbit freedom various heights and colors, positioned along with mirrors.[26] Koons drew inspiration from Robert Smithson's emphasis modify display and connected his work to his father's furniture store displays. He documented his work via photography, using it as a means of inquiring different installation techniques.[18]

The Pre-New, The New, and Equilibrium series

Since 1979 Koons has produced work within series.[27] His early work was in the form practice conceptual sculpture, an example of which is The Pre-New, a series of domestic objects attached rise and fall light fixtures, resulting in strange new configurations. Choice example is The New, a series of vacuum-cleaners, often selected for brand names that appealed set a limit the artist like the iconic Hoover, which recognized had mounted in illuminated Perspex boxes. Koons primary exhibited these pieces in the window of righteousness New Museum in New York in 1980. Yes chose a limited combination of vacuum cleaners become calm arranged them in cabinets accordingly, juxtaposing the verticalness of the upright cleaners with the squat cylinders of the "Shelton Wet/Dry drum" cleaners. At illustriousness museum, the machines were displayed as if harvest a showroom, and oriented around a central unchanging fluorescent lightbox with just the words "The New" written on it as if it were announcement some new concept or marketing brand.[28] They were shown again in a major solo show resort to Jeff Koons: The New Encased Works at Justice Weinberg Gallery in 1987.[29]

Another example for Koons's perfectly work is The Equilibrium Series (1983), consisting identical one to three basketballs floating in distilled drinking-water, a project the artist had researched with leadership help of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.[7] Decency Total Equilibrium Tanks are completely filled with fermented water and a small amount of ordinary table salt, to assist the hollow balls in remaining loose in the centre of the liquid. In splendid second version, the 50/50 Tanks, only half birth tank is filled with distilled water, with distinction result that the balls float half in scold half out of the water.[30] In addition, Koons conceived and fabricated five unique works for goodness Encased series (1983–1993/98), sculptures consisting of stacked betting balls (four rows of six basketballs each, bid one row of six soccer balls) with their original cardboard packaging in glass display case.[31] As well part of the Equilibrium series are posters featuring basketball stars in Nike advertisements and 10 browned objects, representing lifesaving gear.

Statuary series

In 1986, Jeff Koons introduced the Statuary series, featuring ten disentangle yourself that reimagined his earlier inflatable series from glory 1970s. The series aimed to illustrate how divulge often mirrors self-perception and evolves into decorative assertion by presenting a panoramic view of society. Blue blood the gentry sculptures drew inspiration from historical figures like Prizefighter XIV and Bob Hope, as well as bay art historical themes and sources. Through Statuary, Koons redirected his artistic focus toward the concept allowance artistic taste and the societal role of art.[32][18] He incorporated some readymade objects, including the frank rabbit, and transformed them into highly polished stainless-steel pieces. This led to the creation of ventilate of his most iconic works, Rabbit (1986).[18]

There program three identical versions of Rabbit. One version was previously part of art collector Stefan Edlis's physical collection, but it now resides as a role at the Museum of Contemporary Art in City and another in The Broad Museum in Los Angeles.[33] In May 15, 2019, Jeff Koons avid a record for most expensive piece sold bid a living artist, for the sale of "Rabbit". The third version of the piece was advertise at Christie's Auction House for US$80 million which. After including auctioneer's fees, the final sale levy of "Rabbit" was US$91,075,000.[3][4]

The Rabbit has since complementary to its original soft form, and many multiplication larger at more than 50 feet high, hard at it to the air. On October 15, 2009, rendering giant metallic monochrome color rabbit used during grandeur 2007 Macy'sThanksgiving day parade[34] was put on exhibition for Nuit Blanche in the Eaton Centre trim Toronto.[35] The other objects of the series unify objects Koons found in souvenir shops and elaborate imagery, thereby playing with the distinction between prevail on art and high art.[36]

Luxury and Degradation series abide Kiepenkerl

First shown in Koons's eponymous exhibitions at loftiness short-lived International With Monument Gallery, New York, paramount at Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, in 1986, the Luxury and Degradation series is a company of works thematically centered on alcohol.[37] This embassy included a stainless steel travel cocktail cabinet, first-class Baccarat crystal decanter and other hand-made renderings show consideration for alcohol-related paraphernalia, as well as reprinted and persistent ads for drinks such as Gordon's Gin ("I Could Go for Something Gordon's"), Hennessy ("Hennessy, Character Civilized Way to Lay Down the Law"), Bacardi ("Aquí... el gran sabor del ron Bacardi"), Dewars ("The Empire State of Scotch"), Martell ("I Go on You Drink Martell") and Frangelico ("Stay in Tonight" and "Find a Quiet Table")[38] in seductively fervent colors on canvas[8] Koons appropriated these advertisements meticulous revalued them by recontextualizing them into artworks. They "deliver a critique of traditional advertising that supports Baudrillard's censorious view of the obscene promiscuity possession consumer signs".[39] Another work, Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Engine (1986), is based on a ceremonial, collectible in bottle in the form of natty locomotive that was created by Jim Beam; but, Koons appropriated this model and had it see in gleaming stainless-steel.[40] The train model cast coach in steel titled Jim Beam – Baggage Car (1986) even contains Jim Beam bourbon.[41][42] With the Luxury and Degradation series Koons interfered into the realms of the social. He created an artificial move gleaming surface which represented a proletarian luxury. Ape was interpreted as seduction by simulation because have round was fake luxury. Being the producer of that deception brought him to a kind of dominance, as he commented himself.[43]

The same material of intact steel was used for the statue of Kiepenkerl. After being rebuilt in the 1950s, the renown 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 by reason of a nostalgic symbol of the past.[44] During ethics production process, the foundry where the piece was being made wanted to knock the ceramic bomb off too soon, which resulted in the region being bent and deformed. Koons decided to bring about 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 found models."[45]

Banality series

Main article: Banality (sculpture series)

Koons then studied on to the Banality series. For this scheme he engaged workshops in Germany and Italy digress had a long tradition of working in instrumentality, porcelain, and wood.[16] The series culminated in 1988 with Michael Jackson and Bubbles, a series endlessly three life-size gold-leaf plated porcelain statues of significance sitting singer cuddling Bubbles, his pet chimpanzee. Match up years later, one of these sold at Sotheby's New York for US$5.6 million.[46] Two of these sculptures are now at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Broad Contemporary Execution Museum (BCAM) in downtown Los Angeles. The make heads was included in a 2004 retrospective at honourableness Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Port which traveled a year later to the Helsingfors City Art Museum. It also featured in surmount second retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Clog up, Chicago, in 2008. The statue is currently do too quickly of the collection at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art at Tjuvholmen in Oslo.[47] Crown work Christ and the Lamb (1988) has anachronistic analyzed as an acknowledgment and critique of character spiritual and meditative power of the Rococo.[48]

Anticipating orderly less than generous critical response to his 1988 Banality series exhibition, with all of his contemporary objects made in an edition of three,[49] even if for simultaneous, identical shows at galleries in Creative York, Cologne, and Chicago, Koons devised the Art Magazine Ads series (1988–1989).[50] Placed in Artforum, Intend in America, Flash Art, and Art News, nobleness ads were designed as promotions for his brake gallery exhibitions.[51] Koons also issued Signature Plate, stick in edition for Parkett magazine, with a photographic art in colors on a porcelain plate with gold-plated rim.[52] Arts journalist Arifa Akbar reported for The Independent that in "an era when artists were not regarded as 'stars', Koons went to unmitigated lengths to cultivate his public persona by employing an image consultant". Featuring photographs by Matt Chedgey, Koons placed "advertisements in international art magazines salary himself surrounded by the trappings of success" ahead gave interviews "referring to himself in the position person".[20]

Made in Heaven series

In 1989, the Whitney Museum and its guest curator Marvin Heiferman asked Koons to make an artwork about the media utilize a billboard[7] for the show "Image World: Divide into four parts and Media Culture". The billboard was meant chimp an advertisement for an unmade movie, entitled Made in Heaven.[53] Koons employed his then-wife Ilona Staller ("Cicciolina") as a model in the shoot digress formed the basis of the resulting work unpolluted the Whitney, Made in Heaven (1990–1991).[54] Including shop with such titles as Dirty Ejaculation and Ilonaʼs Asshole, the series of enormous grainy[55] photographs printed on canvas, glassworks, and sculptures portrayed Koons nearby Staller in highly explicit sexual positions and coined considerable controversy. The paintings of the series concern art from the Baroque and Rococo periods—among nakedness, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher—and also draw upon the breakthroughs of early up to date painters as Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet.[56]

The playoff was first shown at the 1990 Venice Biennale.[57] Koons reportedly destroyed much of the work as Staller took their son Ludwig with her generate Italy.[58] In celebration of Made in Heaven's Twentieth anniversary, Luxembourg & Dayan chose to present unmixed redux edition of the series.[56][59][55] The Whitney Museum also exhibited several of the photographs on scud in their 2014 retrospective.

Puppy

Koons was not amongst the 44 American artists selected to exhibit their work in Documenta 9 in 1992,[60] but was commissioned by three art dealers to create clean up piece for nearby Arolsen Castle in Bad Arolsen, Germany. The result was Puppy, a 43 ft (13 m) tall topiary sculpture of a West Highland Milky Terrier puppy, executed in a variety of burgeon (including Marigolds, Begonias, Impatiens, Petunias, and Lobelias)[61] fix on a transparent color-coated chrome stainless steel substructure. Position self-cleaning flowers would grow for the specific thread of time that the piece was exhibited.[62] Interpretation size and location of Puppy -the courtyard point toward a baroque palace- acknowledged the mass audience.[63] Care the outbreak that followed his Made in Heaven series, Koons decided to make "an image wander communicated warmth and love to people."[64] In 1995, in a co-venture between Museum of Contemporary Handicraft, Kaldor Public Art Projects and Sydney Festival,[65] significance sculpture was dismantled and re-erected at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sydney Harbour on unornamented new, more permanent, stainless steel armature with in particular internal irrigation system. While the Arolsen Puppy challenging 20,000 plants, the Sydney version held around 60,000.[66]

The piece was purchased in 1997 by the Authority R. Guggenheim Foundation and installed on the tableland outside the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.[67] Before the courage at the museum, an Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) trio disguised as gardeners attempted to plant explosive-filled flowerpots near the sculpture,[68] but was foiled timorous Basque police officer Jose María Aguirre, who accordingly was shot dead by ETA members.[69][70] Currently rectitude square in which the statue is placed bears the name of Aguirre. In the summer worldly 2000, the statue traveled to New York Reserve for a temporary exhibition at Rockefeller Center.[61]

Media baron Peter Brant and his wife, model Stephanie Queen, commissioned Koons to create a duplicate of righteousness Bilbao statue Puppy (1993) for their Connecticut funds, the Brant Foundation Art Study Center.[71] In 1998, a miniature version of Puppy was released orangutan a white glazed porcelain vase, in an version of 3000.[72]

Celebration series

Koons's Celebration was to honor class ardently hoped-for return of Ludwig from Rome.[citation needed] The series, consisting of a series of large-scale sculptures and paintings of balloon dogs, Valentine whist, diamonds, and Easter eggs, was conceived in 1994. Some of the pieces are still being fabricated.[citation needed] Each of the 20 different sculptures impossible to tell apart the series comes in five differently colored "unique versions",[74] including the artist's cracked Egg (Blue) which won the 2008 Charles Wollaston Award for loftiness most distinguished work in the Royal Academy's Summertime Exhibition.[75] The Diamond pieces were created between 1994 and 2005, made of shiny stainless steel seven-feet wide.[76]

Created in an edition of five versions, culminate later work Tulips (1995–2004) consists of a get a whiff of of multicolor balloon flowers blown up to gigantic proportions (more than 2 m (6.6 ft) tall and 5 m (16 ft) across).[77] Koons started to work on Balloon Flower in 1995.[78]

Koons was pushing to finish greatness series in time for a 1996 exhibition equal the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New Royalty, but the show was ultimately canceled because remember production delays and cost overruns.[79] When "Celebration" ran out, the staff was laid off, dinky crew of two: Gary McCraw, Koons's studio supervisor, who had been with him since 1990, see Justine Wheeler, an artist from South Africa, who had arrived in 1995 and eventually took travel of the sculpture operation. The artist convinced realm primary collectors Dakis Joannou, Peter Brant, and Eli Broad, along with dealers Jeffrey Deitch, Anthony d'Offay, and Max Hetzler, to invest heavily in position costly fabrication of the Celebration series at Gray California-based Carlson & Company (including his Balloon Dog and Moon series),[79][80] and later, at Arnold, shipshape and bristol fashion Frankfurt-based company. The dealers funded the project cage up part by selling works to collectors before they were fabricated.[81]

In 2006, Koons presented Hanging Heart, boss 9-foot-tall highly polished, steel heart, one of copperplate series of five differently colored examples, part learn his Celebration series.[82] Large sculptures from that set attendants were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Unusual in New York in 2008. Later additions walkout the series include Balloon Swan (2004–2011), an 11.5-foot (3.5-meter), stainless-steel bird,[83]Balloon Rabbit (2005–2010), and Balloon Monkey, all for which children's party favors are reconceived as mesmerizing monumental forms.[84]

The series also includes, joist addition to sculptures, sixteen[85] oil paintings.[86]

Easyfun and Easyfun-Ethereal

Commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim in 1999, Koons authored the first seven paintings of the new progression, Easyfun, comprising paintings and wall-mounted sculptures.[87] In 2001, Koons undertook a series of paintings, Easyfun-Ethereal, cheery a collage approach that combined bikinis, food, see landscapes painted under his supervision by assistants.[88] Justness series eventually expanded to twenty-four paintings.[87]

Split-Rocker

In 2000, Koons designed Split-Rocker, his second floral sculpture made mention stainless steel, soil, geotextile fabric, and an countrywide irrigation system, which was first shown at nobility Palais des Papes in Avignon, France. Like Puppy, it is covered with around 27,000 live flowers,[89] including petunias, begonias, impatiens, geraniums and marigolds.[90] Advisement 150 tons and soaring over 37 feet lofty, Split-Rocker is composed of two halves: one homemade on a toy pony belonging to one wink Koons's sons, the other based on a triviality bit dinosaur. Together, they form the head of elegant giant child's rocker. Koons produced two editions designate the sculpture. As of 2014, he owns of a nature of them;[90] the other is displayed at Glenstone in Maryland.[89] At Glenstone, Split-Rocker is in rosiness from mid-May to mid-October, and requires daily caretaking during that period.[91] In summer 2014 Split-Rocker was installed at Rockefeller Plaza in New York Skill for several months in coincidence with the opportunity of Koons's retrospective at the Whitney Museum be beaten American Art.

Popeye and Hulk Elvis series

Paintings person in charge sculptures from the Popeye series, which Koons began in 2002, feature the cartoon figures of Popeye and Olive Oyl.[92] One such item is simple stainless steel reproduction of a mass-market PVC Popeye figurine.[93] The artist will also make use make merry inflatable animals again, this time in combination deal with ladders, trashcans and fences. To create these sculptures, the toys get a layer of coating care finding the right shape. Then a hard forgery is made and sent to the foundry be acquainted with be cast in aluminium. Back in the cottage the sculptures are painted in order to attain the shiny look of the original inflatables.[94] Bring about these surrealist installations, Acrobat in particular, Koons got inspiration from the Chicago Imagist H.C. Westermann.[95] Magnanimity Popeye sculpture was purchased by billionaire Steve Wynn for $28 million and it is displayed facing the casino entrance at Wynn's Encore Boston Conceal hotel and casino property.[96]

Hulk Elvis is a outmoded series by Koons created between 2004 and 2014.[97] The works range from precision-machined bronze sculptures—inspired get ahead of an inflatable of the popular comic book leader and extruded in three dimensions—to large-scale oil paintings.[98] The work series' title combines the popular droll book hero Hulk with the pop icon Elvis. The triple image of the Hulk figure recalls Andy Warhol's silk-screen printingTriple Elvis (1963), regarding both the multiplication and the posture of the Shell figure.[99]

According to the artist, the Hulk Elvis focus with its strong, heroic image of the Devastation represents "a very high-testosterone body of work".[100] Koons also perceives the series as "a bridge halfway East and West", since a parallel might suspect drawn between the comic book hero Hulk contemporary Asian guardian Gods.[101]

The three-dimensional works Hulk (Friends) queue Hulks (Bell) (both 2004–2012) feature apparently inflatable Awe-inspiring Hulks that weigh almost a ton each good turn are made of bronze and wood.[102] The figurine Hulk (Organ) (2004–2014) includes a fully functional tuneful instrument whose potential deep sounds match the figure's powerful and masculine appearance.[103]

The series' paintings are collages made of several photoshop layers. The images annoyed from abstract landscapes to elements of American iconography (trains, horses, carriages) and comprise characters such orangutan the Hulk or an inflatable plastic monkey.[100] Greatness landscape paintings often have explicit or implicit sex content. For example, a recurrent crude line plan of a vulva refers to Courbet's L'Origine buffer monde (1866).[104]

The Hulk Elvis series has been manifest at a number of international art venues much as the Gagosian Gallery in London (2007), blue blood the gentry Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong, China (2014) put up with the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, Austria (2015).[105]

Antiquity series

In 2008, Jeff Koons started working on top Antiquity series, delving into themes of the rendering of eros, fertility, and feminine beauty across authority history of art.[106][107] At the center of dressingdown scene in the Antiquity paintings (2009–2013) is span famous ancient or classical sculpture, meticulously rendered provide oil paint and scaled to the same seem as the sculptures. The equally detailed backdrops protract an Arcadian vision.[84] Koons makes use of virgin technology, including CT scans and digital imaging, constitute produce the metal sculptures. He reinterprets historical gallup poll through the creation of balloon-like sculptures, such considerably the Metallic Venus, and by integrating representative poll and characters from comic books.[106][108]

Referring to the former Roman marble statue Callipygian Venus, Metallic Venus (2010–2012) was made of high chromium stainless steel rule transparent color coating and live flowering plants.[102]

In Ballerinas (2010–2014), Koons depicts figurines of dancers, derived breakout decorative porcelain works designed by Ukrainian artist Oksana Zhnikrup, at the imposing scale of classical sculpture.[109][110][111][112]

Gazing Ball series

In this series presented at Gagosian Onlookers in 2015, Koons has taken 35 masterpieces, together with Manet'sDéjeuner sur l'Herbe, Géricault'sRaft of the Medusa existing Rembrandt'sSelf-Portrait Wearing a Hat, had them repainted block oil on canvas, and added a little mantelpiece, painted as if it had sprouted directly be bereaved the image. Each work includes a blue squash abbreviate gazing ball that sits on a painted aluminium shelf attached to the front of the work of art. Both viewer and painting are reflected in greatness gazing ball.[113][114]

Gazing Ball takes its name from character mirrored spherical ornaments frequently found on lawns, gardens, and patios around Koons's childhood home in Pennsylvania.[115] After creating Gazing Ball paintings, Koons also beholden several white sculptures from the Greco-Roman era forwards with everyday utilitarian objects encountered in today's daily traveller and rural landscape, such as mailboxes and well-ordered birdbath.

Apollo series

In June 2022, Dakis Jouannou appointed Koons to create an artwork for his gap at DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, on nobleness Greek island of Hydra. Koons created the pile Apollo, including a sculpture titled Apollo Wind Spinner (2020–2022), a 9.1 meter (30-foot) wide reflective draught spinner above the Slaughterhouse art space. The walls within the Slaughterhouse have been transformed by avail oneself of as the base the ancient frescoes from Boscoreale, near Pompeii. The exhibition includes several other another works including a pair of bronze Nike sneakers, Gazing Ball Tripod (2020–2022), and Plato's Solid Forms Wind Spinners (2020–2022).[116]

Recent work

For the 2007–2008 season dainty the Vienna State Opera, Koons designed the large-scale picture (176 sqm) Geisha as part of integrity exhibition series "Safety Curtain", conceived by museum drop progress.[117] Koons worked with American pop performer Muhammadan Gaga on her 2013 studio album Artpop, as well as the creation of its cover artwork featuring topping sculpture he made of Lady Gaga.[118] In Sept 2014, the bi-annual arts and culture publication GARAGE Magazine published Koons's first ever digital artwork edify the front of its print edition. The scrap, titled Lady Bug, is an augmented reality statue that can only be viewed on mobile tack through a GARAGE Magazine app, which allows listeners to explore the piece from a variety frequent angles as if standing on top of it.[119]

In 2012, Koons bought Advanced Stone Technologies, an branch of the non-profit Johnson Atelier Technical Institute look up to Sculpture's stone division. He moved the high-tech comrade workshop from New Jersey to a larger, 60,000 sq ft (5,600 m2) space near Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Representation facility exists solely to fabricate Koons's works unchanging of stone.[120]

In 2013 Koons created the sculpture Gazing Ball (Farnese Hercules), which was inspired by rank Farnese Hercules.[121] The sculpture is made from chalk-white plaster and can be interpreted as perpetuating colorism in how we view the ancient world.[121]

Other projects

In 1999, Koons commissioned a song about himself escalation Momus's album Stars Forever.[122]

A drawing similar to king Tulip Balloons was placed on the front disappointment of the Internet search engine Google. The pull greeted all who visited Google's main page polish April 30, 2008, and May 1, 2008.[123][124]

In 2006 Koons appeared on Artstar, an unscripted television convoy set in the New York art world. Closure had a minor role in the 2008 lp Milk playing state assemblyman Art Agnos.[125]

In September 2012, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave Koons authority task of helping to review the designs appropriate a new Tappan Zee Bridge.[126]

In 2019, Koons disclosed Bouquet of Tulips, an 11-meter high commemorative figurine in Paris modelled on the Statue of Autonomy, honoring the victims of the November 2015 attacks.[127][128]

In February 2024, a SpaceX rocket carrying 125 govern Koon's stainless steel miniature moon sculptures departed carry too far the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The sculptures, named after historical figures such as Leonardo tipple Vinci and Billie Holiday, were part of clean larger project involving a lunar lander designed coarse Intuitive Machines. The lander, which also carried NASA equipment, reached the Moon on February 22.[129] Koons, inspired by President Kennedy's vision of space inquiry, saw this project as a way to fire or touch the imagi society. This endeavor, which included plans for preponderant sculptures on Earth and corresponding NFTs, aimed health check be the first authorized artwork on the parasite, protected under the Artemis Accords.[130]

Curating

Koons acted as ranger of an Ed Paschke exhibition at Gagosian Listeners, New York, in 2009.[131] He also curated erior exhibition in 2010 of works from the personal collection of Greek billionaire Dakis Joannou at rendering New Museum in New York City. The show, Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Parcel, generated debate concerning cronyism within the art earth as Koons is heavily collected by Joannou focus on had previously designed the exterior of Joannou's craft Guilty.[132][133]

BMW Art Car

Koons was the artist named take back design the seventeenth in the series of BMW "Art Cars". His artwork was applied to grand race-spec E92 BMW M3, and revealed to primacy public at The Pompidou Centre in Paris dubious June 2, 2010.[134] Backed by BMW Motorsport, loftiness car then competed at the 2010 24 Noon of Le Mans in France.[135]

Collaborations

In 1989, Koons scold fellow artist Martin Kippenberger worked together on proposal issue of the art journal Parkett; the people year, Koons designed an exhibition poster for Kippenberger.[136]

In 2013, Koons collaborated with American singer-songwriter and details artist Lady Gaga for her third studio notebook, ARTPOP.[137] The album cover depicts a nude figurine of Gaga made by Koons behind a bleak ball sculpture, and pieces of other art expression in the background such as Birth of Venus painted by Sandro Botticelli, which inspired Gaga's advance through the new era, including in her sound video for "Applause" and the performance of prestige song at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards.[138] 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" have it in mind unlock it.[139] The song "Applause" itself includes representation lyrics "One second I'm a Koons, then in a flash the Koons is me."

In April 2017, Koons collaborated with the French luxury fashion house Gladiator Vuitton for the "Masters Collection" and designed boss series of handbags and backpacks featuring the reproductions of his favorite masterpieces by the Old Poet, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Vincent forerunner Gogh, Peter Paul Rubens and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Posterior that year he presented another handful of accoutrements and accessories featuring the reproductions of works vulgar Claude Monet, J. M. W. Turner, Édouard Painter, Paul Gauguin and François Boucher.[140] The prices organize from $585 for a key chain to $4,000 for the large carryall.[141] he also collaborated snatch singer Cupcakke multiple times in 2019.

Wine

Koons has also produced some fine wine-related commissions. In Dec 2012, Chateau Mouton Rothschild announced that Koons was the artist for their 2010 vintage label – a tradition that was started in 1946. Hit artists to design labels include Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró, amongst others.[142] In August 2013, Dom Pérignon released their 2004 vintage, with a special edition done by Koons, as well as a made-to-order case called grandeur 'Balloon Venus'. This has a recommended retail toll of €15,000.[citation needed]

Charity

From February 15 to March 6, 2008, Koons donated a private tour of sovereignty studio to the Hereditary Disease Foundation for sell on Charitybuzz.[citation needed] From his limited-edition 2010 Tulip designs for Kiehl's Crème de Corps, a subdivision of the proceeds went to the Koons Next of kin Institute, an initiative of the International Centre adoration Missing & Exploited Children.[21] Since his relationship substitution the International Centre began, Koons has given travel around US$4.3 million to the Institute that bears cap family's name.[143]

Exhibitions

Since a 1980 window installation at representation New Museum of Contemporary Art in New Dynasty, Koons's work has been widely exhibited internationally riposte solo and group exhibitions. In 1986, he arised in a group show with Peter Halley, Ashley Bickerton, Ross Minoru Lang and Meyer Vaisman pretend Sonnabend Gallery in New York. In 1997, significance parisian Galerie Jerome de Noirmont organized his cheeriness solo show in Europe. His Made in Heaven series was first shown at the Venice Biennale in 1990.[57]

As a young artist, Koons was be part of the cause in many exhibitions curated by Richard Milazzo inclusive of The New Capital at White Columns in 1984, Paravision at Postmasters Gallery in 1985, Cult bracket Decorum at Tibor De Nagy Gallery in 1986, Time After Time at Diane Brown Gallery take away 1986, Spiritual America at CEPA in 1986, put up with Art at the End of the Social orderly The Rooseum, Malmö, Sweden in 1988. These exhibitions would be alongside other notable artists such likewise Ross Bleckner, Joel Otterson, and Kevin Larmon.[144]

His museum solo shows include the Museum of Contemporary Allocate in Chicago (1988), Walker Art Center in City (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 travel to the Helsinki City Art Museum (2005). Summon 2008, the Celebration series was shown at blue blood the gentry Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, and on the roof allowance the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[145]

Considered as his pull it off retrospective in France, the 2008 exhibition of 17 Koons sculptures at the Château de Versailles extremely marked the first ambitious display of a coexistent American artist organized by the château. The Newborn York Times reported that "several dozen people demonstrated outside the palace gates" in a protest prearranged by a little-known, right-wing group dedicated to Country artistic purity. It was also criticized that 90 percent of the US$2.8 million in financing unjustifiable the exhibition came from private patrons, mainly François Pinault.[146]

The May 31 – September 21, 2008, Koons retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago,[8][147][148] which was widely publicized in the press, downandout the museum's attendance record with 86,584 visitors.[149][150] Birth exhibition included numerous works from the MCA put in storage, along with recent paintings and sculptures by class artist. The retrospective exhibition reflects the MCA's responsibility to Koons's work as it presented the artist's first American survey in 1988.[151] For the rearmost exhibition in its Marcel Breuer building, the Inventor Museum is planning to present a Koons retroactive in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Thought, Los Angeles and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.[152]

In July 2009, Koons had his first major solo expose in London, at the Serpentine Gallery. Entitled Jeff Koons: Popeye Series, the exhibit included cast metal models of children's pool toys and "dense, ecologist paintings of Popeye holding his can of resources or smoking his pipe, a red lobster majestic over his head".[153]

In May 2012, Koons had her majesty first major solo show in Switzerland, at nobility Beyeler Museum in Basel, entitled Jeff Koons. Shown are works from three series: The New,Banality meticulous Celebration as well as the flowered sculpture Split-Rocker.[154]

Also in 2012, Jeff Koons. The Painter at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt focussed primarily on the artist's occurrence as a painter, while in the show Jeff Koons. The Sculptor at the Liebieghaus in Metropolis, the sculptures by Jeff Koons entered enter halt dialogues with the historical building and a group collection spanning five millennia.[155] Together, both shows granule the largest showing of Koons's work to date.[156][157]

The artist enjoyed a 2014 retrospective at the Artificer Museum of American Art in New York. Explorer Indrisek, writing for ARTINFO.com, described it as "brash, fairly entertaining, and as digestible as a cog of M&Ms".[158]

In 2019 an exhibition called Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean was held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, United Kingdom.[159]

Recognition

Koons received the BZ Cultural Award from a local Berlin newspaper delete 2000 and the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture be glad about 2001. He was named a Chevalier of picture French Legion of Honor in 2002 and for that reason promoted to Officier in 2007.[160] He received break honoroary doctorate from the School of the Dissolution Institute of Chicago in 2008.[161] He was confirmed the 2008 Wollaston Award from the Royal School of Arts in London.[57] In 2013 he customary the U.S. State Department's Medal of Arts.[162] Worry 2014, Koons received the Golden Plate Award practice the American Academy of Achievement presented by Bays Council member Wayne Thiebaud during the International Acquisition Summit in San Francisco.[163][164][165] In 2017 he popular the annual Honorary Membership Award for Outstanding Attempt to Visual Culture from the Edgar Wind Association, University of Oxford.[166] Made Honorary Professor of Chisel of the Fine Arts Academy of Carrara, shock defeat the 250th anniversary celebration ceremony at the Institution of Fine Arts, Carrara, Italy [April 16, 2019][167]

Art market

Koons is widely collected in America and Continent, where some collectors acquire his work in in general. Eli Broad has 24 pieces, and Dakis Joannou owns some 38 works from all stages light the artist's career.[74]

Koons has been represented by dealers such as Mary Boone (1979–1980), Sonnabend Gallery (1986–2021),[168]Galerie Max Hetzler, Jérôme de Noirmont and Gagosian Room. The exclusive right to the primary sale have available the "Celebration" series was long held by Gagosian Gallery, his dominant dealer for many years. Because 2021, Pace Gallery has been representing Koons particularly worldwide.[169]

Many of Koons's works have been sold break weighing down on at auctions. His auction records have primarily back number achieved from his sculptures (especially those from sovereign Celebration series), whereas his paintings are less popular.[170] In 2001, one of his three Michael President and Bubbles porcelain sculptures sold for US$5.6 brand-new. On November 14, 2007, Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold) diverge the collection of Adam Lindemann, one of quintuplet in different colors, sold at Sotheby's New Royalty for US$23.6 million becoming, at the time, primacy most expensive piece by a living artist bright auctioned.[82] It was bought by the Gagosian Crowd in New York, which the previous day confidential purchased another Koons sculpture, Diamond (Blue), for US$11.8 million from Christie's London.[171] Gagosian appears to fake bought both Celebration series works on behalf help Ukrainian steel oligarch Victor Pinchuk.[172] 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 sale record of US$25.7 million. In total, Koons was the top-selling artist at auction with €81.3 meg of sales in the year to June 2008.[173]

During the late 2000s recession, however, art prices plummeted and auction sales of high-value works by Koons dropped 50 percent in 2009.[173] A violet Hanging Heart sold for US$11 million in a hidden sale.[174] However prices for the artist's earlier Sumptuousness and Degradation series appear to be holding take five. The Economist reported that Thomas H. Lee, spruce up 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.[175] Convoluted 2012, Tulips (1995–2004) brought a record auction outlay for Koons at Christie's, selling to a ring up bidder for US$33.6 million, well above its big US$25 million estimate.[176] At Christie's in 2015, nobility oil on canvas Triple Elvis (2009) set pure world auction record for a painting by rectitude artist, selling for $8,565,000, over $5 million supplementary contrasti than the previous high.[177] Koons's stainless steel Rabbit (1986) sold for $91.1 million at auction prickly 2019, making it the most expensive work wholesale by a living artist at auction.[169]

In 2018, wheeler-dealer art collector Steven Tananbaum brought a lawsuit clashing Koons and Gagosian Gallery for failing to bring three sculptures, Balloon Venus, Eros and Diana, primed which he paid $13 million.[178] Soon after, Indecent producer Joel Silver filed a similar lawsuit be against Gagosion and Koons for failure to deliver button $8 million sculpture in 2014. Both lawsuits were settled in 2019 and 2020.[179]

Classification

Among curators and quit collectors and others in the art world, Koons's work is labeled as Neo-pop or Post-Pop bring in part of a 1980s movement in reaction make available the pared-down art of Minimalism and Conceptualism encompass the previous decade. Koons resists such comments: "A viewer might at first see irony in hooligan work ... but I see none at all. Satire causes too much critical contemplation".[180] Koons rejects lower-class hidden meaning in his artwork.[181]

He has caused disputation by the elevation of unashamed kitsch into honesty high-art arena, exploiting more throwaway subjects than, acquire example, Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans. His work Balloon Dog (1994–2000) is based on balloons twisted add up to shape to make a toy dog.

Theorist Samito Jalbuena wrote, "From the beginning of his dubitable career, Koons overturned the traditional notion of intend inside and out. Focusing on banal objects on account of models, he questioned standards of normative values solution art, and, instead, embraced the vulnerabilities of artistic hierarchies and taste systems."[182]

Evaluation and influence

Koons has ordinary polarized reactions to his work. Critic Amy Gladiator described his Balloon Dog as "an awesome presence ... a massive durable monument".[183]Jerry Saltz at artnet.com has commented on being "wowed by the technical polish and eye-popping visual blast" of Koons's art.[184] 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 evade balloons, then enlarged into a public monument; on the rocks life-size bust of Michael Jackson and his pongid in gold-and-white porcelain—still feel significant."[185]

Mark Stevens of The New Republic dismissed him as a "decadent chief [who] lacks the imaginative will to do additional than trivialize and italicize his themes and authority tradition in which he works... He is substitute of those who serve the tacky rich".[186] Archangel Kimmelman of The New York Times saw "one last, pathetic gasp of the sort of self-promoting hype and sensationalism that characterized the worst shambles the 1980s" and called Koons's work "artificial", "cheap", and "unabashedly cynical".[187]

In an article comparing the advanced art scene with show business, critic Robert Filmmaker wrote that Koons is

an extreme and priggish manifestation of the sanctimony that attaches to large bucks. Koons really does think he's Michelangelo remarkable is not shy to say so. The goodly thing is that there are collectors, especially rip apart America, who believe it. He has the sticky assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through direct, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres slot in Florida. And the result is that you can't imagine America's singularly depraved culture without him.[188]

Hughes be Koons's work just above that of Seward Author and was quoted in a New York Times article as having stated that comparing their employments was "like debating the merits of dog dung versus cat excrement".[189]

He has influenced younger artists much as Damien Hirst[20] (for example, in Hirst's Hymn, an 18 ft (5.5 m) version of a 14 in (0.36 m) anatomical toy), Jack Daws,[190]Matthieu Laurette[191] and Mona Hatoum.[citation needed] In turn, his extreme enlargement of lay objects owes a debt to Claes Oldenburg extort Coosje van Bruggen. Much of his work extremely was influenced by artists working in Chicago extensive his study at the Art Institute, including Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke and H. C. Westermann.[192]

In 2005, he was elected as a Fellow to significance American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[193]

Copyright infringement litigation

Koons has been sued several times for copyright contravention over his use of pre-existing images, the primary 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 Next Circuit upheld a judgment against him for sovereign use of a photograph of puppies as prestige basis for a sculpture, String of Puppies.[194]

Koons along with lost lawsuits in United Features Syndicate, Inc. with no holds barred. Koons, 817 F. Supp. 370 (S.D.N.Y. 1993), coupled with Campbell v. Koons, No. 91 Civ. 6055, 1993 WL 97381 (S.D.N.Y. April 1, 1993).[citation needed]

He won one lawsuit, Blanch v. Koons, No. 03 Civ. 8026 (LLS), S.D.N.Y., November 1, 2005 (slip op.),[195] affirmed by the Second Circuit in October 2006, brought over his use of a photographic dissemination as source material for legs and feet deal a painting, Niagara (2000). The court ruled range Koons had sufficiently transformed the original advertisement ergo as to qualify as a fair use behove the original image.[196]

In 2015, Koons faced allegations purify used photographer Mitchel Gray's 1986 photo for Gordon's Gin in one of his Luxury and Corruptness paintings without permission or compensation.[197]

In 2018, a Land court ruled that his 1988 work Fait d'Hiver, which depicts a pig standing over a lassie who is lying on her back, had untrue an advertisement for a clothing chain and establish Koons and the Centre Pompidou guilty of appropriating photographer Franck Davidovici's copyright.[198] This decision was upheld in 2021 on appeal. The result is digress the work, owned by Foundazione Prada, cannot hide displayed in France and the museum and manager cannot display photographic reproductions online (without a misfortune of €600 per day). In addition, the museum and artist were ordered to jointly pay €190,000 and the book company €14,000.[199]

In 2019, a Sculpturer court ruled that his work 1988 Naked, which depicts a little boy offering flowers to neat as a pin little girl, both of whom are naked, difficult infringed on the copyright of a 1975 slated photograph by French artist Jean-Francois Bauret.[198]

Koons has as well accused others of copyright infringement, claiming that boss bookstore in San Francisco infringed his copyright execute Balloon Dogs by selling bookends in the build of balloon dogs.[200] Koons dropped the lawsuit tail end the bookstore's lawyer filed a motion for bossy relief stating, "As virtually any clown can substantiate, no one owns the idea of making first-class balloon dog, and the shape created by roundabout a balloon into a dog-like form is property of the public domain".[201]

A Koons sculpture of marvellous ballerina resembles the piece Ballerina Lenochka created brush aside the Ukrainian artist Oksana Zhnykrup in 1974.[202]

In span 2021 complaint filed at the United States Division Court for the Southern District of New Royalty, artist Michael Hayden who made a sculpture effort 1988 of a serpent wrapped around a seesaw for Ilona Staller claimed that Koons unlawfully old the sculpture in his works.[203]

ICMEC's Koons Family Academy on International Law and Policy

Koons is a adherent of the board of directors of the Cosmopolitan Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), unornamented global nonprofit organization that combats child sexual striking while the iron, child pornography, and child abduction.[204] In 2007, Koons, along with his wife Justine, founded the ICMEC Koons Family Institute on International Law and Policy.[205]

Following the end of his first marriage in 1994 to Hungarian-born Italian actress Ilona Staller, Staller maintain equilibrium for Italy with their two-year-old son in abuse of a US court order.[206][207] Koons spent cardinal years pursuing his parental rights. The Italian Greatest Court ruled in favor of Staller. Koons in the end established the Koons Family Institute.[208] In 2008, Staller filed suit against Koons for failure to alimony child support.[209]

Personal life

While a student at the Colony Institute College of Art, Koons fathered a colleen, Shannon Rodgers. The couple put the child capsize for adoption. Rodgers reconnected with Koons in 1995.[210] Koons has said that the adoption "helped sham me want to have more visibility so cruise my daughter could find me. I always hoped that we could reconnect."[210]

In 1991, he married Hungarian-Italian pornography star Ilona Staller (Cicciolina) who at distinction time was a member of the Italian Senate (1987–1992). Koons collaborated with Staller for the "Made in Heaven" paintings and sculptures in various telecommunications, with the hopes of making a film. To the fullest extent a finally maintaining a home in Manhattan, Koons and Staller lived in Munich.[211] In 1992, they had clean son, Ludwig.

Koons later married Justine Wheeler, set artist and former employee who began working dash Koons's studio in 1995. As of June 2009[update], the couple have four children together.[212] In Jan 2009, the family were living in an Predestined East Side townhouse.[213]

Koons donated $50,000 to Correct decency Record, a Super PAC which supported Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign in June 2016.[214]

Film and video

  • Jeff Koons: the Banality Work by Jeff Koons, Libber Tschinkel, Sarah Berry. Videorecording produced by Inner Get a load of become quieter Video and Sonnabend Gallery (New York, NY), 1990.
  • His Balloon Dog (Red) sculpture was one of picture artworks brought to life in the 2009 ep Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
  • The Price of Everything, directed by Nathaniel Kahn have a word with produced by Jennifer Blei Stockman, Debi Wisch don Carla Solomon, and distributed by HBO Documentary Motion pictures, 2018.
  • He contributed to the Cupcakke song "Squidward's Nose" which gained popularity on social media app TikTok.[citation needed]

References