Koons Quotes & Sayings

Jeffrey Deitch is the Jeff Koons of art dealers. Not because he's the biggest, best, or the richest of his kind. But because in some ways he's the weirdest (which is saying a lot when you're talking about the wonderful, wicked, lovable, and annoying creatures known as art dealers). — Jerry Saltz

Abstraction and luxury are the guard dogs of the upper class. — Jeff Koons

If I try to articulate every little detail in a drawing, it would be like missing the forest for the trees, so it's just about getting the outline of the forest. — Jeff Koons

I produce a lot of my artwork in Germany. — Jeff Koons

I like to look at everything and appreciate seeing the different things that have meaning to people. — Jeff Koons

Damien Hirst is the Elvis of the English art world, its ayatollah, deliverer, and big-thinking entrepreneurial potty-mouthed prophet and front man. Hirst synthesizes punk, Pop Art, Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Bacon, and Catholicism. — Jerry Saltz

I think about my work every minute of the day. — Jeff Koons

A photograph for me does not have a sense of spiritual seduction, it does not have an essence, that this is something that permeates and which is eternal through time. — Jeff Koons

I remember being an art student and going to the Whitney in 1974 to see the exhibition of Jim Nutt, the Chicago imagist. It was then I transferred to school in Chicago, all because of that show. — Jeff Koons

Jeff [Koons] called me because he'd seen a portrait of David Bowie, at the beginning of the 80s - I've known Jeff for a long time - and he said, Greg, I want to look like a high-profile celebrity, living on the edge. I think that says it all. — Greg Gorman

Art is about profundity. It's about connecting to everything that it means to be alive, but you have to act. — Jeff Koons

As far as I can see, materialism is a view that has no very compelling argument in its favor and that is confronted with very powerful objections to which nothing even approaching an adequate response has been offered. The central objection, elaborated in various ways below, is that the main materialist view, quite possibly the only serious materialist view, offers no account at all of consciousness and seems incapable in principle of doing so. — Robert C. Koons

For me, art really starts with acceptance, self trust. Wherever you come to with art, it's perfect. You don't have to come with anything. What you bring to something is the art. That's where it's found. It's found within you. — Jeff Koons

I believe that art has been a vehicle for me that's been about enlightenment and expanding my own parameters, to give me courage to exercise the freedom that I have in life. — Jeff Koons

Even before I had children I wanted the intensity of my life to get greater. I wanted to feel things more strongly. I wanted my intellectual parameters to expand. But it comes back to your own desire to be engaged and to live up to your parameters. — Jeff Koons

Nothing can touch me now - I'm Jeff Koons and my art can defend me ! — Jeff Koons

It's wonderful to make a lot of money, to be able to take care of my family, to have the facilities I have and really support the people the studio's involved with. But at the end of the day I'm quite simple as an artist-it's really about the power of art. — Jeff Koons

Art has this ability to allow you to connect back through history in the same way that biology does. I'm always looking for source material. — Jeff Koons

I'm really not a person who consumes a lot. I don't have a sports car. — Jeff Koons

The first thing that any good artist has to develop is a sense of independence from the artworld. What really destroys a young artist is insecurity, the fear that everything could be taken away at any moment. — Jeff Koons

If one day Balloon Dog's value bursts and shrivels in a Koons crash, we can only hope that Anonymous has an ongoing relationship with his orange pooch that can sustain the inevitable inflations and deflations of all speculative markets. In fact, a balloon serves as a nice metaphor for the lessons of history: you blow and you blow and you blow, and the thing gets larger and larger and larger still, and in your excitement you forget the laws of physics, and you begin to believe that your balloon is like no other balloon in the world - there is no limit to its size. And then, it pops. — Siri Hustvedt

I went to art school ... but I worked at the Museum of Modern Art. I worked in fundraising at the information membership desk. I ended up, over a period of time, doubling the amount of membership revenue that came in through people entering the museum, so people would ask me to come and work for them. — Jeff Koons

I would prefer a normal-sized breast, or a small breast or whatever, and that it be natural, than to understand that it was just some jelly in there. — Jeff Koons

Art helped give me confidence. — Jeff Koons

If you want to look at a cheap shot, look at Mr. Koons's or Mr. Gober's art. By no definition is it art. — Morley Safer

Amanda Cardinale, Abby Koons, Emily Sweet, and Sharon Krassney also deserve my thanks. I appreciate all that you do. The Cyrus family deserves my thanks not only for welcoming me into their home, but for all they've done with the film. And a special thanks goes to — Nicholas Sparks

All of Koons's best art - the encased vacuum cleaners, the stainless-steel Rabbit (the late-twentieth century's signature work of Simulationist sculpture), the amazing gleaming Balloon Dog, and the cast-iron re-creation of a Civil War mortar exhibited last month at the Armory - has simultaneously flaunted extreme realism, idealism, and fantasy. — Jerry Saltz

I've always enjoyed feeling a connection to the avant-garde, such as Dada and surrealism and pop art. The only thing the artist can do is be honest with themselves and make the art they want to make. That's what I've always done. — Jeff Koons

I think artists are always investigating how to have an economic, political platform. At one time, artists were supported by the Church. Then they were supported also by the state. — Jeff Koons

If I physically made every work myself, I would get only one or two paintings done a year, if that. — Jeff Koons

I believe that my art gets across the point that I'm in this morality theater trying to help the underdog, and I'm speaking socially here, showing concern and making psychological and philosophical statements for the underdog. — Jeff Koons

When you have an idea for a work and when you've finished your model for it, for the artist it's almost complete, in a way. But then bringing it to the finish is really something you do for the audience. It is always exciting. — Jeff Koons

I'm in deep in everything, every moment of the day. I create the systems and oversee every aspect of the execution. Every mark on a sculpture and every brush-stroke on a painting is in a controlled situation, exactly as they'd be if I'd have done them myself. — Jeff Koons

Art to me is a humanitarian act and I believe that there is a responsibility that art should somehow be able to effect mankind, to make the word a better place. — Jeff Koons

The first piece I ever collected was a Roy Lichtenstein: a sculpture called 'Surrealist Head II'. There was a waiting list. I remember Steve Martin wanted one, and I wanted one. I got the 'Surrealist Head', and I was thrilled. — Jeff Koons

Mr. Koons's work has always inspired architects, which I think is very interesting. I think he is an artist who has reinvented himself so many times and reinvented so many different series. — Hans Ulrich Obrist

When I view the world, I don't think of my own work. I think of my hope that, through art, people can get a sense of the type of invisible fabric that holds us all together, that holds the world together. — Jeff Koons

I want my work to be accessible to people, — Jeff Koons

Brothers, why are you here?" He looked
astonished, even perturbed.
"We come to help."
"I thought the monks and priests were to be in the church, praying."
"We pray with our feet," answered Anseau.
"Tell us how we can help. — D.W. Koons

I'm interested in power. — Jeff Koons

As morality seems to have supplanted civilization, I move on to the spiritual. — Jeff Koons

When people make judgments they close all the possibility around them. — Jeff Koons

Whenever you finish an artwork and the viewer comes and views it, at that moment you've given up control. — Jeff Koons

People have different ideas, emotional ideas, of what certain words mean, and they think of irony as something that's more associated with being cynical-it's kind of a put-down. — Jeff Koons

Art is something that happens inside us. We look at things in the world, and we become excited by them. We understand our own possibilities of becoming. And that's what art is. — Jeff Koons

I believe in sensuality. I believe in sex. I believe in the survival of the species. I like aspects of things that are ethereal, but I like the reality of nature and embracing the way nature works, and aspects of interrelationships between male-female, aspects of the body, the way the body has changed over thousands of years ... — Jeff Koons

I believe in advertisement and media completely. My art and my personal life are based in it. I think that the art world would probably be a tremendous reservoir for everybody involved in advertising. — Jeff Koons

I always like to believe that my work is about the expansion of the possibilities of the viewer. So if you have a sense of a heightened situation where there's an excitement, a physical excitement and an intellectual stimulation, there's just this sense of expansion. Because that's where the art happens. Inside the viewer. — Jeff Koons

My favorite activity is to be with my family. — Jeff Koons

I'm basically the idea person. I'm not physically involved in the production. I don't have the necessary abilities, so I go to the top people. — Jeff Koons

I'm making some of the greatest art being made now. It'll take the art world ten years to get around to it. — Jeff Koons

Pretty mundane closet, but a lot of ties. And I tend not to throw anything out, so I have a lot of clothes from all times from my life. I can be a little sentimental with things like that. — Jeff Koons

I like my drawings to be direct. I don't generally work on them for too long, but that doesn't mean that they are not works in their own right. — Jeff Koons

From the time that I was a child, I loved interacting with people. I would go around door-to-door and sell candies and gift-wrapping paper, and it was a great way to interact with people and communicate with people. — Jeff Koons

When art is defined by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, you've got a society that's impoverished. — Robert Adams

I'm interested in power. I'm interested in the kind of polarities and equilibriums that take place within sexuality and philosophy and sociology. So in Versailles, in this type of setting, you have a place that is about absolute control, where everything has been thought about. — Jeff Koons

I am very conscious of the viewer because that's where the art takes place. My work really strives to put the viewer in a certain kind of emotional state. — Jeff Koons

I enjoy all mediums, and I have to say, music is the medium that first made me understand how powerful art could be. — Jeff Koons

I know how art has come in and really changed my life, so to give these children that opportunity just to come into contact with art - that's wonderful. — Jeff Koons

Every day I wake up and I really try to pinch myself to take advantage of today and to use that freedom of gesture to do what I really like to do. — Jeff Koons

I use printers to make prints of the images that I am creating. And I try to have that surface kind of replicated in the painting. — Jeff Koons

Art's a very metaphysical activity. It's something that enriches the parameters of your life, the possibilities of being, and you touch transcendence and you change your life. And you want to change the life of others, too. That's why people are involved with art. — Jeff Koons

I think if I met Frank Auerbach or Jeff Koons, I'd be more wobbly than if I met Robert De Niro! — Russell Tovey

The job of the artist is to make a gesture and really show people what their potential is. It's not about the object, and it's not about the image; it's about the viewer. That's where the art happens. — Jeff Koons

As an artist, I've always wanted to participate in the dialogue of art with other artists. — Jeff Koons

The media, the galleries, the collectors - it's all very chaotic actually. The artworld doesn't have this defined corporate structure that people imagine. — Jeff Koons

There are certain artworks that I respond to, artists that I respond to. It's an intellectual reaction but it's also a biological reaction. And the excitement that the work can generate - how it makes you feel about not only your intellectual possibilities but your physical possibilities in this world. How it feels to be alive! — Jeff Koons

I think you always, as an artist, feel like you would like to be more and more specific about your intent and your interests. — Jeff Koons

If you are someone like Jeff Koons, and you have to work out how to make a big chrome heart or something, then there are lots of people and a big production involved. The money is more natural somehow. For me, I am just on my own in the studio, trying to make things work. One thing is sure: it doesn't make painting any easier. — Peter Doig

I spend much more time looking at art history and at different references to art than I do at actual objects. — Jeff Koons

It's about the production of the work. I need my workers to stay focused. — Jeff Koons

Even in making objects, as soon as you start to get the feeling that some form of craft is coming into place, you realize that everything is wrong. Because craft is really just a fetish. It is wasted energy. It's about the object, some space which has nothing to do with the human. — Jeff Koons

My process of being inspired is very intuitive. Im constantly following my interest. — Jeff Koons

A lot of my work is about sales. And it was about being independent from the art market. — Jeff Koons

If you have an idea, you have to move on it, to make a gesture. Drawing is an immediate way of articulating that idea - of making a gesture that is both physical and intellectual. — Jeff Koons

I try to create work that doesn't make viewers feel they're being spoken down to, so they feel open participation. — Jeff Koons

I love the gallery, the arena of representation. It's a commercial world, and morality is based generally around economics, and that's taking place in the art gallery. — Jeff Koons

I'd have to say I've become more aware of my communal responsibility. — Jeff Koons

A lot of times, my work is looked at very much on the surface. It's very easy to just want to put something in a box - to say, 'Oh, since this work deals with surface desires at times, this is about consumerism.' And of course, the base of the work is ... not about economics at all. — Jeff Koons

Art is obsolete now. New technologies are taking over. — Jeff Koons

The moment we live in is a great time to make art. We have different technologies to play with, and we're left with the opportunity to focus on our work. — Jeff Koons

I don't believe that artists really are interested in money. That's not the motivation for art. — Jeff Koons

I don't think irony is about judgment; I think irony is something like, "Oh, that's interesting," because it's not something I think one starts off to achieve. I think it's just something that presents itself. And if it does, I find it's usually optimistic, not negative in its terms. — Jeff Koons

I try to be a truthful artist and I try to show a level of courage. I enjoy that. I'm a messenger. — Jeff Koons

I always liked Disney films. To this day I think 'Bambi' is great. — Jeff Koons

The entertainment industry, the advertising industry have taken [the] tools from the art world and made themselves much more politically potent. We are really devastated and very impotent right now. A photographer just working for an advertising company has a platform to be much more politically effective in the world than an artist. — Jeff Koons

I'm always working. If I'm not in my studio I become quite nervous. — Jeff Koons

I was always an artist. I was a broker to earn a living, but I was always thinking about my art. — Jeff Koons

I thought I would call myself a pig before the viewer could, so they could only think more of me. — Jeff Koons

Koons's work has always stood apart for its one-at-a-time perfection, epic theatricality, a corrupted, almost sick drive for purification, and an obsession with traditional artistic values. — Jerry Saltz

Art was something I could do better. It gave me a sense of self. — Jeff Koons

I was trying to make art that my son could look on in the future and would realize I was thinking about him very much during these times ... that he can look and see my dad's thinking about me, but to also embed in these things something that is bigger than all of us. — Jeff Koons

The Whitney is a museum that has a great rapport with younger artists and the community. — Jeff Koons

Anything you can do to protect the public and allow it to have the confidence that our financial controls are good is very, very positive. — Jeff Koons

I learned a lot about the images of pornography and how much they dealt with close-up, when a person is at their most vulnerable and having to reveal details about themselves. I wanted to combine the eternal in two different manners. There is the biological eternal - here is our species reproducing - and then the transparent, spiritual aspect of it. — Jeff Koons