Artist Spotlight: Jeff Koons
Wednesday 30th April 2014In this new series of posts, we're going to take a look at some of the dichotomies of the art world: the most influential artists and the rising stars, the well-known and the unknown, the sought-after and the reviled. Sometimes, as in the case of this week's post, it will be up to you to decide which categories the artist falls into. Jeff Koons is a very polarizing force in the contemporary art community for a number of reasons, but his staying power and his influence cannot be denied. As we discussed in a previous post, Koons currently holds the world record for highest auction price attained for a work by a living artist, when 'Balloon Dog (Orange)' sold recently for over $37 million USD.
"I think art takes you outside yourself, takes you past yourself. I believe that my journey has really been to remove my own anxiety. That's the key. The more anxiety you can remove, the more free you are to make that gesture, whatever the gesture is. The dialogue is first with the artist, but then it goes outward, and is shared with other people. And if the anxiety is removed everything is so close, everything is available, and it's just this little bit of confidence, or trust, that people have to delve into."
An interesting idea, but at least at the moment, it seems like he's removed so much anxiety by not actually being involved in the production process of any of his work. In this critic's opinion, it's something of a cop-out.