Jeff Koons (1955)

Jeff KOONS (York, Pennsylvania) 1955)

Koons made his debut at the age of eight with colored pencil reproductions of classical masterpieces, which were sold by his father in his interior supply store.

After training at the Maryland College of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, Koons moved to New York in 1976, where he attracted attention with readymades that consisted of a combination of fluorescent tubes and household items. He also made Inflatables: inflatable flowers and rabbits. To finance his art, he worked for several years on the New York Stock Exchange.

From 1981, Koons worked on his Equilibrium Tanks: aquariums in which there are motionless floating basketballs. In order to develop the technique needed to achieve this effect, he corresponded for years with a large number of scientists.

His first solo exhibition in New York in 1985, on the themes of balance and survival, consisted of bronze casts of a life jacket and a dinghy alongside the Equilibrium Tanks. Koons' straightforward interpretation of his themes was pushed further in the following years: in Luxury and Degradation, the theme of seduction was given shape through huge reproductions of chic drink advertisements, combined with stainless steel objects related to the consumption of such drinks. drinks. The Statuary (1986) series also consisted of reflective stainless steel objects, including a reproduction of an inflatable rabbit.

For the Banality series from 1988, Koons used the technique with which porcelain kitsch figurines are usually produced. A riot around the purchase of such an image, Ushering in banality, by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam increased the reputation of Koons in the Netherlands.

In addition to porcelain, he used glass and brightly painted wood during this time for images of dogs, flowers, stuffed animals and American pop icons such as the Pink Panther, Michael Jackson, including Bubbles, and Buster Keaton.

Puppy in Bilbao The next step in Koons' career was a short-lived marriage with the Hungarian-Italian porn actress Ilona Staller ('Cicciolina'). The way in which he immortalized their love in 1991 with the exhibition Made in Heaven, inspired by contemporary pornography, was 'liberating', according to Koons. From this time on, Koons' media appearance is increasingly regarded as part of his art.

In 1992 Koons made his first sculpture consisting of living flowers, Puppy: a twelve meter high lap dog that served as the figurehead for the documenta in Kassel that year. Six years later, the statue would be reinstalled at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. In 1992 a retrospective of Koons' work was shown in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum.

In 1999 Koons presented Easyfun: a series of collages of images that are reminiscent of glossy magazines and advertisements. The work was produced using the same technique used to make the metre-high oil-on-canvas prints for Made in Heaven.

In 2000 he made another monumental flower sculpture. The work Split-rocker, split rocker chicken, was set in a courtyard of the Palais des Papes in Avignon.

On November 14, 2007, the work Hanging Heart was sold at auction house Sotheby's for $23.6 million. At the time, this was the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist.[1]

In July 2008, his Balloon Flower (Magenta) was sold by auction house Christie's in London for $25.7 million.

[edit] Exhibitions

In 2008, the Jeff Koons on the roof with the Balloon dog exhibit was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. From September 10, 2008 to January 4, 2009 there was an exhibition at the Château de Versailles.

Other Koons exhibitions: From May 13 to September 2, 2012 in the Fondation Beyeler in Basel in Switzerland The Painter from June 20 to September 23, 2012 in the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in Frankfurt in Germany The Sculptor from June 20 to September 23, 2012 at the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung in Frankfurt in Germany

[edit] Painting style

Koons' merit generally lies in the incorporation of kitschy elements into 'Art with the capital A', which is why his work, in the same breath as Andy Warhol's, is called postmodernism. Koons' work shows similarities with pop art, in that he takes elements from lower art and processes them in higher art. His work is therefore classified in the Neo Pop Art category. In the special case of Koons one sometimes speaks of überkitsch: kitsch that is so strongly stimulated that it can no longer be enjoyed and that is precisely where it derives its artistry.