Wheat Beer with a Side of Warhol: In Conversation with Jeff Koons

My father was a respected interior designer and furniture dealer. He put my pictures up in his storefront as an eye-catcher to attract passersby. When I was 15, he advised me to paint larger formats in oil. They sold for $700 to $900. I put the money in the bank so I could afford a car later.

Led Zeppelin. That band taught me to feel. My moving to New York at age 21 had to do with Patti Smith. Her voice and the message in her songs gave me the courage to believe in a life in art. I applied for a job at the Museum of Modern Art every week to get closer to that goal. At some point they said that I could work at the reception counter and recruit new members. I painted in my free time and worked on sculptures of everyday objects like vacuum cleaners.

I noticed how they neglected the recruitment of new members. My theatrical accessories were meant to attract attention and make visitors think they were witnessing a performance. When people approached, I engaged them in conversations about the great works of art shown in the museum. When the time was right, I asked if they wanted to become a paying member.

Yes, I doubled the number of memberships in my two years working there. My record was 13 new supporting members in one day.

An artist with some money in the bank does not have to cater to the art market’s tastes. What I earned on Wall Street gave me the freedom to make exactly the art I envisioned. Money was a means to an end; it enabled my artistic autonomy.

Anyone who wants to say something relevant about reality has to carry opposite poles in themselves. You can’t depict light without darkness, or darkness without light. But very early on I decided to be as positive as possible in my art, because feelings of happiness are a wonderfully warm weapon. My work is designed to give life energy and confidence—to inspire people to be their best selves and to enjoy their lives as intensely as possible. Art that creates archetypal images of happiness can contribute to the survival of future generations.

It’s a cliché to think that only tortured souls can produce great art. I had a good childhood and am immensely grateful to my parents for their encouragement and support. That said, I also had my fair share of fears and self-doubt and read philosophers like Kierkegaard and Sartre to seek advice. The key to my liberation wasn’t philosophy, though; it was art. It took me by the hand and taught me to trust my own, particular focus rather than listening to authority figures or following fashions. The less afraid I was, the greater my freedom as a person and an artist became. This journey to a higher self is the essence of my art. I want to incite transcendence and enlightenment.

For me, a glass is neither half full nor half empty. Life is a well-filled glass into which I dip a spoon.

No, that would not be good for my mental health. I only look at the factual statements published about me. I give interviews because I find it absurd to leave the context and interpretation of my work to critics or curators.

When I was 16 or 17, it became my goal in life to enter a dialogue with certain art historical figures. That goal has remained steadfast to this day. My artistic lineage spans from Warhol and Lichtenstein via Dalí, Picabia and Duchamp to Titian, Masaccio and the Stone Age people who made the Venus of Willendorf 30,000 years ago. Studying these artists and the fictitious conversation with them has made my cultural DNA what it is. Andy is in my genes. He was the Pop Art version of a father figure to me. But my great guide was Duchamp. I came out of him and Andy. He is our shared grandfather.

There were two chance encounters with Andy, but they did not happen in the Factory and stayed on the surface. They said he surrounded himself in the Factory with young artists who immersed themselves in his world to the point of self-abandonment. I wasn’t interested in being part of a circle of obedient students. I wanted go my own way and find a path that no one had taken before. To be honest, it was only later in life that I learned to appreciate Warhol’s art. My favorite is his Death and Disaster series, which he started in 1962.

No, every artist should have the freedom to decide for themselves which feelings or insights benefit the community.

No. The things that show up in my work are values that I believe in and for which I want a future. These values are my counterparts to the political reality. They have the power to change the world.

Nothing is more powerful than being confronted with sincerity. That is why the strongest art is also the truest. An artist who is only looking to provoke will fail sooner or later. An image made in the service of a political cause cannot have power. I want to stimulate people’s spiritual growth and help them embrace their own history. Self-acceptance is the precondition for higher states of consciousness and love for others. I experienced this transformation firsthand.

My works are anti-elitist, mainstream and democratic. Every viewer encounters a work like a stranger who wants to be persuaded to stay. If the artist uses a vocabulary that only a few insiders understand, then most people will end up ignoring their work. There are no educational barriers in my art, because I want to address as many people as possible. The opposite of me would be an artist whose works are so hermetic that they intimidate people and make them feel small. You can also use art to generate powerlessness and discrimination. That’s why I think taking art off of the pedestal is the right thing to do. I have nothing against people who feel superior to me and look down on my art. Everyone should have a say. It’s better than dividing humanity into smart people and dumb ones; into people with good taste and bad. There is no right or wrong aesthetics. Anyone who asserts such a thing presumes an authority that does not exist in art. Every path is valid; every taste is okay.

I know the feeling of insolvency from when I started out, which is why I never shot myself in the foot when it came to selling my art as expensively as possible. Record prices say nothing about an artwork’s value, but they attract attention and by doing so, give an artist a larger platform. My works are not meant to be lonely gestures that no one sees. I want my ideas and values to be discussed by as many as possible.

About seven to ten paintings and 15 to 20 sculptures—far less than you might expect.

It was the first time that I became a father and I thought about how my child should grow up and how I wanted to raise him. Whenever I walked by postcard stands, I sensed my receptivity to photos of babies sitting in buckets. The bucket symbolized the uterus, the baptismal font, the lifeboat. For some of the pictured babies, it’s impossible to tell if their faces express ecstatic happiness or hellish anxiety. This seemed to me a parable of my paternity: a yearning for security, faith, and happiness here; the fear of illness and accidents there. Happiness takes on a black lining of worry when you become a dad.

I then opted for Ludwig Maximilian, after the King of Bavaria who had such magnificent castles built.

The theme of Made in Heaven was overcoming shame, embarrassment and guilt—and I still believe in that goal today. We are free only when we accept our body and the manifestation of our sexuality. My ex-wife stood by her history as a porn actress and had a wonderfully shame-free relationship with her body. That was the reason for her unbridled energy. Sex is a narrative that cannot lie.

When Ludwig was one-and-a-half years old, my ex-wife illegally took him to Rome and locked me out of his life for many years. It was during that time that I started the Celebration series, which celebrates the happiness and innocence of childhood. I wanted my work to prove to Ludwig how much I thought of him.

My ex-wife and I have spent more than ten years fighting for custody of our son—a grueling nightmare. She claimed that Made in Heaven was not art but pornography, and that a pornographer should not be entrusted with a child. To avoid having this discussion in front of a judge, I destroyed all work from the series that had not yet been sold.

Would I do all over again today? If it meant helping my child: yes.

He studies in Rome and takes art lessons.

I don’t have to explain anything to them. They’re used to seeing these works and pass by them without much thought. They understand that I wanted to tell a story about Adam and Eve. They do not want to know more about my artistic intentions.

Annie’s photo has two metaphorical levels. First, I train in my gym for one hour every weekday at 12 o’clock. Second, the heavy work with weights seems like a symbol for my life as an artist. Not a minute passes that I don’t have to think of a blank canvas.

I want to have a strong, resilient body so that I can perform as an artist even in old age. Picasso and Cy Twombly created their most sublime works after 80. Twombly’s late work seems made in the hereafter. He saw a spark of the Divine.

Train was originally supposed to be built in Paris. Then the Los Angeles County Museum of Art wanted to buy it. Then the museum backed out, and the sculpture was supposed to stand on the High Line in New York. Now I’m back in talks with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. All this back-and-forth is due to the cost of the project. You can build a big building for the money. Still I’m sure Train will be finished in less than ten years.

Train is so expensive because we’re talking about a steam locomotive that can do almost anything real steam locomotives can. We only changed the timings. A regular steam locomotive needs about eight hours to build up enough pressure to take off. Ours can do it in 30 minutes. Then a bell rings, you hear the choo-choo of the cylinders, clouds of steam swell from the chimney, and the wheels start to move. It reaches orgasm after two-and-a-half minutes: the noise of the cylinder reaches its climax, the wheels turn as fast as if the locomotive had reached its maximum speed of one hundred miles per hour. After the orgasm, the spectacle runs backwards at the same speed. The wheels spin slower and slower until a last puff of steam finally rises out of the chimney.

No, maybe childish amazement is a higher form of understanding than trying to solve hidden cerebral puzzles that an artist has come up with to practice social criticism. Train should become a social magnet and connect people to a community, like cathedrals did in the Middle Ages. Train is a symbol of human existence from the first to the last breath. Everyone will recognize themselves in it straightaway.

No, the only exception is a poster of my 1988 wood sculpture Stacked from the Banality series. It shows a large domestic pig, a goat, two dogs and a small bird stacked in a pyramid—a reference to the “Town Musicians of Bremen” fairy tale. My children love that work.

I am surrounded by my work from morning to night in my studio. My wife is also an artist; she paints and designs jewelry. She doesn’t hang her paintings at home, either. Our children shouldn’t think of their mother and father when they think of art, but artists like Dalí, Picabia, Magritte, Courbet, Bernini or Praxiteles. I want to spare them the feeling of being burdened by the pressure of having famous artist parents. They should have the freedom to find their own place in art.

Opposite the bed hangs Picasso’s The Kiss from 1969. To the right and left of it I see two Manet nudes and paintings by Poussin and Fragonard.

Drinking wheat beer is a romantic and mind-expanding experience for me. The reproductive aroma of yeast, the sensuality of the ascending carbon dioxide bubbles, the compact texture of the foam, the aesthetic interplay of yellow and white—I just love everything about wheat beer. When I drink it, I feel a biological and spiritual union with life.