So, I was in NYC for a few days and I had the chance to stop by and see my boy Toshi who happens to work at the studio of one Jeff Koons.
Toshi is a Cal State Long Beach alum who got a job painting for Koons about a year ago. He squeezed Ruchir and me in for a tour of Koons headquarters. However, I've recently realized that most people have no idea who Jeff Koons is, which makes it especially hard for me to name-drop while discussing my trip. So, let me save you some time on Wikipedia and give you a quick overview:
In the late 70's, fresh out of art school, Koons worked as a commodities broker on Wall Street while establishing himself in the art world.
One of his early sculpture series consisted of various Hoover vacuums placed alongside fluorescent light bulb tubes. In the 80's, he set up a factory-like studio in SoHo and hired a bunch of assistants to produce art under his direction and supervision.
One of Koons' most widely known pieces from early in his career is a life-size gold-plated porcelain statue of Michael Jackson and his chimpanzee Bubbles. Koons produced 3 of these pieces, one which old at Sotheby's auction for $5.6 million and is currently in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
In 1991 he married a European porn star named Ilona Staller and produced a series of paintings, sculptures and photos, entitled MADE IN HEAVEN, featuring the couple having sex in explicit detail. (Believe it or not, I'm trying to keep things on this blog relatively tasteful. If you want to see more of the MADE IN HEAVEN pieces, look it up on Google.)
Later in the 90's Koons started producing large scale reproductions of everyday objects, like balloon animals and inflatable children's toys. Recently his paintings have featured collage-like compositions of photorealistic figures, famous cartoon characters and abstract scrawls.
Koons' works have sold for absurd amounts. In 07 the Gagosian Gallery in New York bought a Koons sculpture called 'Diamond (Blue)' for $11.8 million from Christie's London.
The next day the same gallery bought a piece called 'Hanging Heart (Magenta)' from Sotheby's New York for $23.6 million, which, at the time, was the most expensive piece by a living artist ever auctioned. Wikipedia notes, however, that Koons has not been unscathed by the current economic recession. Recently a violet colored version of 'Hanging Heart' was sold for a mere $11 million.
Opinions of Koons, his works, and their prices, vary drastically depending on who you ask. He is undoubtedly one of the most well known, albeit most polarizing artists living today.
Anyway, for me, the tour of the studio was an amazing experience. I come from a really art-heavy background. My dad is an artist. Growing up, our house was always filled with art and art books. And even at Cal State, I studied Studio Art, as well as Film, so I took the whole curriculum of Art History, Life Drawing, Painting, Ceramics, the whole nine yards.
No matter my views on Koons' work, having the chance to peer inside the studio of someone of that magnitude in the art world, was really intriguing to me, especially compared to all of the other artist studios and offices I've had the chance to see. (FYI - Last year a charity auctioned off a visit to Koons studio and the bidding ended somewhere upwards of $3,000) We got to see a ton of works in progress and yet to be released stuff. (I'd have taken and posted photos if I could, but with a blog readership as enormous as ours, I thought I'd play it safe and not risk getting anyone fired or myself sued) I also got to talk to a couple of other people on staff and tried to get a good understanding of how everything within the studio is produced and what role Koons plays in the overall process.
One thing that was genuinely refreshing was how relaxed the vibe of the whole place was. Granted, we stopped by on a holiday when very few people were working. But the studio is made of several large connecting warehouses, all of which are filled with sculptures and paintings in various stages of completion, and you have to consider that each of those works sell for several million dollars on the free market. The fact that some kid like me could come inside and roam around is kind of cool.
Anyway, now you know who Koons is. Hopefully it'll come in handy next time you're trying to impress some girl at an art museum. Thanks to Toshi for letting us come through.
