Koons, Jeff (1954- )

US artist. He gained both popularity and notoriety in the 1980s for his kitsch, often controversial, conceptual sculptures, and his self-promotion.

Koons became an artist while working as a Wall Street broker in New York City. His marketing skills helped his rise to fame in the late 1980s. His work, most of which is implemented by assistants, is characterized by exaggerated and unusual representations of popular images. Examples include vacuum cleaners showcased in plexiglass, and basketballs immersed in aquariums. His Statuary series featured a stainless-steel casting of a blowup rabbit, while his Banality series included a 1.83-m/6-ft porcelain statue of US pop star Michael Jackson with his pet chimpanzee.

Sex is also a common theme - his photographic series Made in Heaven portrayed Koons and his wife engaging in sexual intercourse in front of highly stylized backgrounds. In 1992 he erected Puppy, a 40-foot West Highland terrier made of live flowers, near an international exhibition in Kassel, Germany. The installation was critically acclaimed, despite the fact that Koons had not been invited to the exhibition. From 2000 he started to concentrate on painting. His Easyfun-Ethereal series (2001) comprised collages of images of bikinis, fragmented nudes, food, and landscapes.