Jeff Koons
born 1955
© Jeff Koons
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© Jeff Koons
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Biography
Jeffrey Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for working with popular culture subjects and his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York, Pennsylvania.
His works have sold for substantial sums, including at least one world record auction price for a work by a living artist. On November 12, 2013, Koons's Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York City for US$58.4 million, above its high US$55 million estimate, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction. The price topped Koons's previous record of US$33.7 million and the record for the most expensive living artist, held by Gerhard Richter, whose 1968 painting, Domplatz, Mailand, sold for US$57.1 million at Sotheby's on May 14, 2013. Balloon Dog (Orange) was one of the first of the Balloon dogs to be fabricated, and had been acquired by Greenwich collector Peter Brant in the late 1990s.
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, crass, and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works, nor any critiques.
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Read full Wikipedia entryArtworks
Artist as subject
Film and audio
Watch
Unlock Art: Great Double Acts
Rock band The Kills jump on a tandem to explore the art of collaboration
Watch
3 Minute Wonder: Jeff Koons, Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank
Directed by Mike Figgis. Produced by Red Mullet and Tate Media
Watch
Pop Life: Opening party
The people who helped to produce Tate Modern's Pop Life exhibition celebrate on the opening night in September 2009.
Watch
Pop Life: Jeff Koons Rabbit
To celebrate Tate Modern’s Pop Life exhibition, a giant 53-foot helium balloon by Jeff Koons was inflated in Covent ...
Features
Look Closer
Jeff Koons: Banality, Decadence and Easyfun
From advertising and commerce to social-mobility and youth culture, explore some of the themes behind Jeff Koons’s art
Essay
Art and Pornography
Tread the line between creativity and sex as we explore what separates these two terms
Art Term
Neo-geo
Short for neo-geometric conceptualism, the term neo-geo came into use in the early 1980s in America to describe the work ...
Art Term
Kitsch
Kitsch is the German word for trash, and is used in English to describe particularly cheap, vulgar and sentimental forms ...
Art Term
Appropriation
Appropriation in art and art history refers to the practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art ...
Blog
ARTIST ROOMS blog: Koons Collaborative Museums at Night - Norwich Castle
Louisa Brown of the Koons Collaborative group looks forward to the Museums at Night event inspired by the ARTIST ROOMS ...
Tate Etc
Welcome to his situation...: Tino Sehgal's Turbine Hall commission
The work of the British-born German artist Tino Sehgal exists solely as a set of choreographed gestures and spoken instructions ...
Tate Etc
In the freewheeling world of the mind: René Magritte II
The Belgian Surrealist remains an influential figure among contemporary artists. Tate Etc.’s Mariko Finch spoke to four admirers. One ...
Press Release
Jeff Koons’s giant rabbit balloon arrives in Covent Garden for Pop Life: Art in a Material World at Tate Modern
8 Oct 2009
Jeff Koons’s giant rabbit balloon arrives in Covent Garden for Pop Life: Art in a Material World at Tate ...
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