Jeff Koons Quotes Page 2

“I think art teaches us how to feel, what our parameters can be, what sensations can be like; it makes you more engaged with life.”

“I think artists are always investigating how to have an economic, political platform. At one time, artists were supported by the Church. Then they were supported also by the state.”

“I think you always, as an artist, feel like you would like to be more and more specific about your intent and your interests.”

“I try to be a truthful artist and I try to show a level of courage. I enjoy that. I'm a messenger.”

“I try to educate people about materialism through my work. I try to show them real visual luxury.”

“I try to make pieces that are durable. One of the reasons that I work in steel is durability.”

“I 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.”

“I was trying to make art that my son could look on in the future and would realize I was thinking about him very much during these times... that he can look and see my dad's thinking about me, but to also embed in these things something that is bigger than all of us.”

“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.”

“I would think that to people like my father, and the people of his generation, Popeye is like a male priapist. So if you think in ancient terms, he would have a harem, a symbol of male energy.”

“I'd have to say I've become more aware of my communal responsibility.”

“I'm always working. If I'm not in my studio I become quite nervous.”

“I'm in deep in everything, every moment of the day. I create the systems and oversee every aspect of the execution. Every mark on a sculpture and every brush-stroke on a painting is in a controlled situation, exactly as they'd be if I'd have done them myself.”

“I'm interested in power.”

“I'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.”

“If I physically made every work myself, I would get only one or two paintings done a year, if that.”

“If 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.”

“If you have an idea, you have to move on it, to make a gesture. Drawing is an immediate way of articulating that idea – of making a gesture that is both physical and intellectual.”

“It's not about finding relevance or perfection or imperfection in objects, but it's that you can accept yourself and then go out and accept others.”

“My favorite activity is to be with my family.”

“Once you trust in yourself, you automatically want to go outside of yourself.”

“One of the reasons I work with technology the way I do is that I can really be assured that the vision I have from the outset is what will be at the end. And that that vision isn't altered through the process.”

“Pretty mundane closet, but a lot of ties. And I tend not to throw anything out, so I have a lot of clothes from all times from my life. I can be a little sentimental with things like that.”

“The first piece I ever collected was a Roy Lichtenstein: a sculpture called 'Surrealist Head II'. There was a waiting list. I remember Steve Martin wanted one, and I wanted one. I got the 'Surrealist Head', and I was thrilled.”

“The Whitney is a museum that has a great rapport with younger artists and the community.”

“There are certain artworks that I respond to, artists that I respond to. It's an intellectual reaction but it's also a biological reaction. And the excitement that the work can generate – how it makes you feel about not only your intellectual possibilities but your physical possibilities in this world. How it feels to be alive!”

“When 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.”

“When people make judgments they close all the possibility around them.”

“When you have an idea for a work and when you've finished your model for it, for the artist it's almost complete, in a way. But then bringing it to the finish is really something you do for the audience. It is always exciting.”

“Whenever you finish an artwork and the viewer comes and views it, at that moment you've given up control.”