Jeff Koons — À propos — Slash Paris

Born in 1955 in Pennsylvania, Jeff Koons grew up in an environment where objects mattered as much as the gaze cast upon them: his father ran a home décor store, and his mother was a seamstress. From an early age, Koons understood that the things we choose to display say something about who we are—sometimes more than words ever could.

When he arrived in New York in the late 1970s, he worked as a Wall Street commodities broker to finance his artistic practice, closely observing a system built on desire, value, and speculation. This double life—art and finance—would permanently shape his vision: for Koons, art does not exist outside the market; it is an unapologetic mirror of it.

His early works drew attention for their almost clinical coldness. Brand-new vacuum cleaners, inflatable balloons, beach toys—everything is presented as sanctified, sealed off, frozen in time. Koons does not seek to openly criticize consumer society; instead, he stares it straight in the face and offers back a reflection so smooth it becomes unsettling. His artistic gesture lies less in transforming objects than in transforming our relationship to them.

In the 1990s, he crossed a symbolic threshold by exposing his own intimate life, blurring the boundaries between art, celebrity, and provocation. This period left a lasting mark on his reputation: Koons became an artist whose every move was scrutinized, commented on, and sometimes attacked. Yet behind the scandal, his obsession remained unchanged—to eliminate irony and moral distance, making room for a radical affirmation of the visual and of the image.

His monumental polished-steel sculptures, inspired by party balloons or children’s toys, attract the viewer, reflect them, and incorporate them into the work itself. Koons does not tell a story; he creates an experience in which each person literally sees themselves in the admired object. The artwork is never complete without the one who looks at it.

An artist of ambivalence and ambiguity, Jeff Koons stands as the ultimate symbol of art turned luxury, faithful to a simple idea: never rank tastes, never judge what gives us joy, and never feel the need to justify it.