Jeff Koons is one of today’s most controversial working artists. He has had a decidedly unique career: despite his playful, often hyperbolic, artistic style, Koons has undertaken a number of shockingly conventional jobs in his life, such as working as a commodities broker on Wall Street.
He was born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1955, but he currently lives and works in New York CIty, where he has undertaken public commissions (such as Seated Ballerina, 2017, in Rockefeller Center). He studied both at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, as well as the Art Institute of Chicago. When he graduated with a BFA in 1977, he moved to New York City, where he worked in membership services at the Museum of Modern Art. While he was at MoMA, he began working on his unique and original style, utilizing everything from inflatable toys to domestic appliances.
Koons also developed an artistic persona that was simultaneously blithe and over-the-top. The artist has repeatedly asserted that his work should be taken at face value and that there is no hidden meaning or interpretive content.
His most distinguishable design is that of a balloon dog, which he has recreated in several iterations and thta it is famous worldwide. These balloon dogs are often massive in scale, made of metal, and given a mirror-like finish. His Balloon Dog (Orange), one of five versions in various colours, holds the highest auction record for a living artist, selling for $58.4 million in 2013.
Jeff Koons loves playing with ideas of taste, pleasure, celebrity, and commerce. According to the artist, his art and his personal life are based on advertisment and media. Working with seductive commercial materials, he is able to turn banal objects into high art icons. His paintings and sculptures borrow widely from art-historical techniques and styles: he loves Surrealism, Dada and Pop Art.
