he world’s most expensive living artist is
slowly making his way across an elegant
Florentine square. Photographers surround
Jeff Koons like a flock of hungry seagulls. It
is the launch of his first big retrospective in
Italy and he’s getting the kind of attention
normally reserved for a Hollywood film
star. Koons, 66, is one of a handful of
celebrities in the world of visual art whose
name pulls crowds to museums. He is also
one of its most divisive figures, whose
sculptures sell to the super-rich for tens
of millions of dollars.
Over the past 25 years the growing
number of high-net-worth individuals has
led to an explosion in the contemporary
art market. According to Artprice.com, the
contemporary art price index soared to an
all-time high at the beginning of summer
2021 — with price increases of 400 per cent
since the early 2000s. In the past year alone,
$2.7 billion worth of contemporary works
have changed hands at auction. About a third
of these sales are generated by a handful of
artists: Koons is one of them, Banksy is
another. In 2019 Koons became the highest-
selling living artist when his stainless-steel
Rabbit, modelled on a child’s inflatable
bunny, sold for more than $91 million to a
billionaire hedge fund manager.He says he learnt aesthetics from his
father, who was an interior decorator at a
furniture store. As a boy, Koons revelled in
the constantly changing window displays
in his dad’s store. He made copies of famous
artworks, which his father displayed and
sold — an important early validation.
In 1972 the 17-year-old Koons left home
to attend the Maryland Institute College
of Art in Baltimore. At first he felt like a fish
out of water. Or as he puts it: “I survived
art school because I was able to accept
my own cultural history. I grew up in
Pennsylvania in a middle-class background.
I was able to accept who I was and see that
if something had meaning to me,Slim with a well-coiffed head of dark
hair, Koons is dressed in a navy shirt and
a well-pressed pair of jeans. He looks more
like a Wall Street banker than a tortured,
paint-splattered creative — perhaps
because he once was. He spent six years
as a commodities trader before taking up
art full-time. Today, his work divides the
art world between those who think he is
a cynical salesman creating big, shiny,
superficial trophies and those who see
him as a great figure in the American pop
art tradition, the heir to Andy Warhol.
For Koons to be exhibited in the home
of the Renaissance is an important
affirmation. He may have conquered the
market since he emerged from the New
York art scene of the 1980s but he has
struggled to conquer the critics. In 2004
the renowned Australian art critic Robert
Hughes famously wrote: “Koons really does
think he’s Michelangelo and is not shy to
say so ... He has the slimy assurance ... of a
blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in
Florida.” But attitudes towards him are
shifting and many world-class museums
have exhibited Koons shows in recent
years, including the Ashmolean in Oxford.
Koons’s manner is patient and polite with
everyone who approaches him. When I first
meet him in Florence he nervously asks me
if his breath smells. Apparently there had
been some confusion over his breakfast
order. “I asked for an egg-white omelette
with onions, spinach and tomatoes and
after eating it I realised they’d put garlic
in, so if you can smell something, please
tell me.” He is a perfectionist who likes
to be in control of his environment. The
unexpected garlic has clearly thrown him.
Like his artworks, he is polished on the
outside, but the carapace is difficult to
penetrate. He often seems to be talking
from a pre-written script, with stock phrases
that are constantly repeated. Talking to him
can be a surreal experience as he robotically
trots out a ready-made narrative about his
art and his life, regardless of the question
posed. When I ask how it feels to be
exhibiting in Florence, he says he’s “thrilled
to be involved in a dialogue with a wider
community about art. I’m thrilled because
when I started, I knew nothing about art.”
He then launches into a well-rehearsed
story that appears in almost every interview
he’s ever given about growing up in
suburban Pennsylvania. It’s an origin story
that is deeply rooted in a bright and hopeful
postwar American consumer culture — and
a theme he will return to repeatedly during
both my encounters with him, first in Italy
and later at his studio in New York.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1955, Koons
was encouraged to take art lessons by his
parents. “I remember around the age of
three, I made a drawing and my parents
gave me lots of praise. My older sister
Karen could always do things better,
[whereas] art was something I was good at.”Koons in 1979, with a moustache inspired by
Dalí, shortly before becoming a bankerRabbit, modelled on a child’s inflatable
bunny, sold for $91 million in 2019He looks more like a
Wall Street banker than a
tortured, paint-splattered
creative — perhaps
because he spent six years
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