Jeff Koons

The most famous, iconic and top-selling American artist Jeff Koons utilises everyday objects as ubiquitous as vacuum cleaners and transforms them into surreal, stupendous and spectacular works of art. Koons works with a plethora of mediums and materials to create pieces that not just comment on popular culture but are hyper-real manifestations of consumerism. Imbued with a sense of delicious irony and contradiction, the large creations draw attention to the rampant urban manifestations in a non-judgmental way.  

Born in York city of Pennsylvania, the US in 1955, Koons completed his art education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and subsequently at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He inherited the sense of aesthetics from his father who was an interior decorator. After finishing his art education, he moved to New York where he worked at the Museum of Modern Art. Also, he had worked as a commodities broker on Wall Street, before finally making art his full-time occupation.

Koons is most well known for his stainless steel balloon sculptures. His 1986 stainless steel piece Rabbit sold for a whopping 91.1 million dollars at Christie’s. Prior to the same, his popular Balloon Dog had fetched 58.4 million dollars. Koons is considered one of the world’s most expensive artists.

The most controversial of Jeff Koons’s work is the 1989 series Made in Heaven that explores themes of sexuality, desire and love from an altogether new and radical angle. The series is based on  Koons’s erotic and semi-pornographic photo shoots with the then Italian pornstar Llona Staller.

His works have been widely exhibited all over the world. Jeff Koons has been felicitated with a number of awards and accolades.