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 KoonsI 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 KoonsI 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 KoonsI try to be a truthful artist and I try to show a level of courage. I enjoy that. I'm a messenger.
Jeff KoonsIf 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 KoonsI like to look at everything and appreciate seeing the different things that have meaning to people.
Jeff KoonsI think you always, as an artist, feel like you would like to be more and more specific about your intent and your interests.
Jeff KoonsI 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 KoonsI'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 KoonsWhenever you finish an artwork and the viewer comes and views it, at that moment you've given up control.
Jeff KoonsFor me, art really starts with acceptance, self trust. Wherever you come to with art, its perfect. You dont have to come with anything. What you bring to something is the art. Thats where its found. Its found within you.
Jeff KoonsI 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 KoonsI'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 KoonsArt 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 KoonsPeople 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 KoonsArt 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 KoonsArt is about profundity. It's about connecting to everything that it means to be alive, but you have to act.
Jeff KoonsI don't like being naïve about the market, and I always try to make things as great as I can. Then I hope that there's an audience that enjoys them, and that hopefully those things get protected.
Jeff KoonsWhen 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 KoonsI 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 KoonsA 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 KoonsI 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 KoonsI enjoy all mediums, and I have to say, music is the medium that first made me understand how powerful art could be.
Jeff KoonsI don't believe that artists really are interested in money. That's not the motivation for art.
Jeff KoonsThe 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 KoonsAs an artist, I've always wanted to participate in the dialogue of art with other artists.
Jeff KoonsIt'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 KoonsEvery 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 KoonsI spend much more time looking at art history and at different references to art than I do at actual objects.
Jeff KoonsArt 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