© JEFF KOONS, PA, GETTY IMAGES
His shows are popular with families because
youngsters respond to the childlike aspect
of his work. And then there’s the Instagram
crowd. On the day of the opening I watch
a group of young women pose for selfies in
the reflective mirrored surface of Koons’s
monumental stainless steel Balloon Monkey.
The electric blue sculpture modelled on
party balloons fills the inner courtyard with
its long phallic tail. There’s something
deliberately sexual about it.
Koons has a strong personal connection
to Italy but it’s a painful one. His oldest son,
Ludwig, from whom he was estranged for
many years, is Italian. His first wife, Ilona
Staller, was a Hungarian-born Italian porn
star, who was briefly an MP in the 1980s.
Known as La Cicciolina, she had a novel
approach to international diplomacy:
she once offered to have sex with Saddam
Hussein in exchange for letting weapons
inspectors into Iraq. Koons met Staller in a
nightclub and initially hired her as a model
for a series of very graphic sexual paintings
and sculptures depicting the pair of them
in various positions of the Kama Sutra.
He called the series Made in Heaven and
said he hoped it would neutralise “shame
around sex”. Instead it caused outrage in
the art world, cementing Koons’s reputation
as a cynical self-publicist. The couple
married in 1991 but three years later, after
their son was born, had an acrimonious
divorce and a long, bitter custody battle.
It’s hard to reconcile the mild-mannered
man I meet with the exhibitionist who once
posed naked, simulating sex with a porn
star. He comes across as a family man who
is happiest when talking about his kids. He
has eight in total, ranging in age from nine
to 46. The oldest, Shannon Rodgers, was
conceived while Koons was an art student.
He wanted to marry her mother but she felt
they were too young, and the baby was put
up for adoption. Koons was thrilled when
Shannon tracked him down in 1995. He’s
in regular contact with her and his two
grandchildren. His six youngest childrenare with his current wife, Justine Wheeler,
a South African-born artist who once
worked as his studio assistant and has
proved to be a great stabilising influence
after the chaos of the Cicciolina years.
The custody battle over his son cast a
long shadow. When Ludwig was a toddler,
he was taken by his mother back to Rome
in contravention of a New York court order
and didn’t see his father for a long time.
Koons told The Guardian that Ludwig “was
turned against me” and that the legal costs
nearly drove him to bankruptcy. During
that time Koons destroyed some of the
Made in Heaven series. There was some
speculation that he had done this in anger,
but he is also reported as saying he did it to
protect his son after his ex-wife claimed the
works were pornographic. It was clearly a
very painful period for the artist who set up
the Koons Family Institute on International
Law and Policy to help other parents in
similar situations. Though I am asked not
to bring up the saga, I am assured that he
and Ludwig, now 29, are on good terms.
He gushes with pride when I ask if any of
his children are artistic, telling me that one
of his two daughters, Scarlet, wants to be
an actress and a stand-up comedian, and his
youngest son is extremely gifted at drawing.
“Probably the greatest pleasure I have is
showing my children a way in the world in
which they can flourish,” he says, smiling.
“We drag them round museums all over
the world. We usually spend new year in
a foreign city and that would involve a visit
to a gallery or museum. They would be withme here in Florence if it wasn’t for school.”
The Koons family split their time
between a townhouse on the Upper
East Side of Manhattan and a farm in
Pennsylvania. Eighteen years ago he and
Justine decided they wanted the children to
experience rural life, so went house-hunting
in Pennsylvania. After looking “at literally
hundreds of places” they ended up buying
his grandfather’s old farm, which had been
sold when the artist was four years old.
“We knocked on the door, I explained
about my grandfather, so they invited us
in, showed us round and you know what?
About three months later they rang and
said, ‘Would you be interested in buying?’ ”
Less than a week after meeting Koons
in Florence I visit his studio in New York,
where he designs his artworks with the help
of about 50 assistants. He is renowned for
working with cutting-edge technology and
top craftspeople. When I ask if he makes
anything with his own hands he answers,
“Does the film director make the film?” His
studio is two floors of an ordinary-looking
office block in midtown Manhattan. Inside
it looks more like an architect’s office, filled
with rows of desks. There are mock-up
models of his current shows in Italy and
Qatar (which opens today), with miniature
cutouts of the work in cardboard. The
assistants sit in front of computer screens
working on 3D scans of his latest designs,
known as The Porcelain Series, which will
go on sale in about two years’ time.
When I ask Koons to explain his practice
step by step, he ushers me into a small
storeroom. Inside a tall gunmetal cupboard
are dozens of small, garishly painted
porcelain figurines: ballerinas with lace
tutus and shepherdesses cuddling lambs.
They remind me of the kind of thing my
grandmother kept on her mantelpiece.
“I’m always searching for stuff, you know,
looking on eBay and in airport gift shops.”
He riffles around in the back before
excitedly pulling out a 1950s china ashtray.
“I love this. My grandparents hadWhen I stand in front
of the work, a warped
version of my reflection
looks back at me like the
distortion in a funfair
mirror. It’s unsettling
From left: Play-Doh, which took Koons 20 years to make; assistants at work in his New York studio; Balloon Monkey at the Palazzo StrozziThe Sunday Times Magazine • 17