Return to Transcripts main page

TALK ASIA

Jeff Koons - World's Most Expensive Living Artist at Auction

Aired December 18, 2014 - 23:30:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(MUSIC PLAYING)

JEFF KOONS, ARTIST (voice-over): My working day is really very much 9:00 to 5:00. But I come to the studio. I try to just really make

everything available to myself.

ANNA COREN, CNN HOST (voice-over): A conventional day-to-day routine for a manager's job is somewhat unconventional. Meet Jeff Koons, the

world's most expensive living artist at auction, thanks to this stainless steel "Balloon Dog Orange," that sold at Christie's for $58.4 million in

2013.

His work has been called "playful," "provocative" and "controversial." And to many, it challenges the boundaries of art and technical ability.

Over his 35-year career, Koons' work has morphed through several phases, from a study of industrial production and consumerism to the world of pop

culture, kitsch and sexuality.

His art, though, remains as much awe-inspiring as it is divisive when it comes to critics and viewers.

This month on TALK ASIA, we're in Hong Kong with one of the biggest names in contemporary art. We get a personal tour of his fork over (ph)

series.

KOONS: It gets loud.

COREN: Slightly obnoxious.

COREN (voice-over): And discover why the band Led Zeppelin was and still is so important to him.

KOONS: It just changed my life.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

COREN (voice-over): Jeff Koons, welcome to TALK ASIA.

KOONS (voice-over): Anna, it's great to be here.

COREN (voice-over): You've been described as the most original, controversial and expensive American artist in the past 3.5 decades. As a

budding art student back in the day, was that the plan, to conquer the art world?

KOONS: Yes, I think the plan was to participate. I always have just loved art. I loved the idea of the avant-garde, you know, to have a

dialogue with people like Duchamp and Dali, Picabia, you know, Warhol.

COREN: You've also been described as one of the most misunderstood artists of your generation.

Would you say that's fair?

KOONS: Well, I think that there -- people have different takes on the work. I know how what my motivations are, what are my intentions are. I

always try to do the best I can to take people to a certain viewpoint that they can look at the work from a certain way and then they complete the

work within their own mind.

But I guess sometimes you fail.

COREN: What do you want people to get out of your work?

KOONS: Joy. Art for me has brought a tremendous transcendence. It's made me have vaster parameters. I've always wanted to share that with the

viewer, because that's really where the art happens.

COREN: Well, you grew up in Pennsylvania in a small town. You had the quintessential American childhood. I think you described it as an

innocent and beautiful life.

Were you an artistic child?

KOONS: My father was an interior decorator. So I learned aesthetics through my dad. And I also learned that if you have a vision, you can go

about exercising that.

But on my mother's side of the family, my grandfather and his brothers, all my uncles, they were merchants. So I really -- and my

grandfather was city treasurer in York. So I kind of learned also political aspects of life and being engaged in your community.

COREN: Because your parents were very supportive of you becoming an artist. And you obviously went off to art school. And whilst you were

there, your mother read that Salvador Dali was going to be in New York and suggested that you call him. And you did just that.

KOONS: So I called him up and he answered the phone. And I was a little nervous, but I told him I'm a young artist from Pennsylvania and

I've always loved his work, could I meet him. And he told me to come up that Saturday and exactly at noon he came down. And he was fantastic. I

mean, he had a huge buffalo fur coat on and he had a diamond tie clip and a silver cane. And his mustache was up.

And he informed me that he had a show at the Knoedler Gallery. And once we were at the show he posed for some photographs in front of some of

the paintings. And at one point -- I had a camera, a big Nikon, at the time. And I was kind of juggling it around, trying to get it focused. And

he put his mustache up and he took a pose. And he told me, I can't hold this pose all day, kid. But I went home that night really feeling that I

can do this. I can make this a way of life.

COREN: Well, after graduation, you moved to New York and got a job at the Museum of Modern Art, selling memberships. And I believe that you were

an absolute hit, sold more memberships than anybody else.

KOONS: I was brought up to be very self-reliant. So when I was a child I would go door to door and my parents would drive me in a car, take

me to kind of a suburban neighborhood and I would get out with a box. And I'd go door to door.

COREN: Is that where your salesman skills you think have come from?

(MUSIC PLAYING)

KOONS (voice-over): Oh, I think so. And I think communication -- I mean, at the end of the day, it's about communication. And as an artist,

I've wanted to use the tools that are available as an artist for communication. And it's the same -- sales is kind of like the front line

of morality (ph).

COREN (voice-over): How do you feel when somebody criticizes your work?

KOONS (voice-over): Hurt.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

KOONS (voice-over): I've always worked with inflatables from the time that I was a young artist, just moving to New York, I worked with

inflatable flowers. I worked with vacuum cleaners, inflatable basketballs in equilibrium tanks.

More recently, "Balloon Venus" or "Swan." The reason that I enjoy things that involve air is they're a symbol of us.

COREN: It was during your time at MoMA that you came up with the inflatable series. And it's been said that you were able to turn everyday

objects already made and elevate them into the realm of art.

Why the fascination with inflatables?

KOONS: When I was working at MoMA, I was seeing the collection, the architecture design department, more involved with Duchampian ideas. And I

remember seeing the inflatables, the inflatable flowers, inflatable rabbit and I thought that there was something that captured me, but they're kind

of anthropomorphic. We're breathing machines, you know. We're inflatables. And when we're like this, we're kind of a symbol of energy.

We have the power of life. And when we deflate, it's a symbol of death.

And so I think that I was using them for that aspect of positive aspects of life.

COREN: Obviously creating art is an extensive process, especially when you're a perfectionist like yourself. I understand that at one stage,

you went broke and then took a job on Wall Street, of all things, as a commodities trader.

KOONS: Well, when I worked at the Museum of Modern Art, I would sign up a lot of people to be patrons for the museum. And a couple people would

say, Jeff, I came in here, I wanted just a family membership and I've ended up I'm a contributing member or I'm a patron now of the Modern.

And they would ask me to come and work for them. And I ended up getting registered selling mutual funds. And I would just go door to door.

But it gave me the ability to make more money to produce my art works. And eventually I got registered for a community.

COREN: Well, in 1986, renowned art collector Charles Saatchi, bought one of your pieces of work for $75,000, which back then was a lot of money.

How did that feel?

KOONS: Well, I was really excited to make the Train. The Train is called the "Jim Beam - J.B. Turner Train." And I was walking down 5th

Avenue in New York and I saw this readymade. And it was a Jim Beam Distillery train, where you had the engine, the baggage car, a boxcar, a

log car, the caboose, seven different cars.

But so I made this piece and I had a gallery sponsoring me to create it, the Daniel Weinberg Gallery. But Charles Saatchi came in and bought

it. But to be able to create the piece was quite expensive. And so at the time, I guess that price was -- I guess was a pretty big deal.

But it was basically coverage the cost to make the piece.

COREN: Why does your art cost so much to make?

KOONS: Well, some things it costs to make -- I guess it's because I'm interesting in creating things that have an interesting feeling about them,

a high impact. And I'm trying preserve details and essence of things. And I end up working with technology a lot to help me make the most objective

thing possible, where the gesture is mine. The value of art doesn't come from the monetary aspect.

That's a symbol of how society at a certain time may view how a work is functioning that many society does find it important. But the value is

how it changes your life.

COREN: Does money motivate you, though?

KOONS: No. I mean, I feel self-reliant. I feel like I can take care of myself and my family, no matter what happens. I feel responsibility to

my family as a father and a caretaker. But beyond that, no.

COREN: Some of your work has collected some pretty mind-blowing prices. "Balloon Dog" last year sold for $58.4 million, the most expensive

work by a living artist.

KOONS: It's wonderful. For me, for my family, it's great. But I would still be doing what I do and my motivations and what got me to make

the "Balloon Dog" were to participate as an artist in a discourse with all the human disciplines of the gesture that we have of human beings, to

communicate with each other about life and life's possibilities.

COREN: But fetching that price tag, I mean, that must have been mind- blowing.

KOONS: Yes. It's something that is wonderful. It's wonderful for me because it's a symbol to me that somebody is probably going to take care of

that object. If they paid that amount of money for it, they're probably going to try to be sure it's around a couple of years. So that makes me

happy.

COREN: Tell us about "Rabbit," which, of course, is one of your most enduring and famous icons.

KOONS: When I made the work, "Rabbit," it was in a body of work called "Statuary." And the "Rabbit," though, became really kind of a

popular kind of iconic image. And I think it's because of all the different ways you can look at it. You can look and you can see the rabbit

as resurrection, Easter. You can see the carrot's in the mouth as an orator, kind of like I'm speaking right now, somebody maybe with a

microphone, making proclamations or the Playboy Bunny. And the list kind of just goes on and on.

COREN: Well, let's talk about your "Banality" series, which of course involved the statues of Michael Jackson and his chimpanzee, Bubbles, as

well as the buxom blonde hugging Pink Panther.

What was the idea behind those?

KOONS: "Banality" was a very kind of liberating exhibition for me. But it happened through making a piece called "Kiepenkerl." And I've

always worked with readymades up to this point. And "Kiepenkerl" was a readymade. It was a large sculpture. But when it was manufactured, the

foundry banged it up against the wall to knock off the ceramic shelf, off the steel, before it was cooled.

And so it deformed. And so against everything that I had always done up to this point, maintaining every perfection and imperfection of an

object, I let -- called in kind of a specialist in steel. And we gave it radical plastic surgery. And I tried to save this, going against the grain

of everything that I'd done working with readymades up to this point.

But I realized the readymade that I really cared about was the viewer. So I go on and I make "Banality." But it was from that liberating

experience, realizing that what I really cared about were the perfections and imperfections of the viewer. That's what was important, not these

external objects that are just metaphor.

COREN: Well, in relation to that exhibition, art critic Robert Hughes famously said, "The art world is grievously ill at the moment."

How do you feel when somebody criticizes your work?

KOONS: Hurt. And I feel hurt because I never want to lose anyone. I really believe in the tools of art. I believe in the tools of

communication. And I always try, to the best of my ability, to communicate my objective to people, what my intent, my interests are.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

KOONS (voice-over): And I know that they're moral (ph).

COREN (voice-over): Coming up, Jeff Koons opens up about some of his most controversial work.

KOONS (voice-over): And I thought, you know, I'll hire that porn star, Italian politician, and I'll call it "Made in Heaven Starring Jeff

Koons and Cicciolina."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

COREN (voice-over): Will you tell us about your "Hulk Elvis" series. It's quite incredible.

KOONS (voice-over): This is bronze (ph). This is called "Hulk (Organ)." The whole series is kind of high testosterone. It's this body

of work. I really wanted to show kind of a Western and Asian cultures coming together in a kind of a shared dialogue.

In the West, we kind of have this Hulk figure that transforms and changes into this very, very powerful figure. And in Asia, you have the

guardian gods. And these guardian gods can be protectors and they can completely take care of you and make you secure and at the same time they

can just transform. They can very powerfully bring the house down.

But this is a live working organ. I'll turn it on for you. This is as loud as a helicopter. So it's quite loud. It doesn't have perfect

pitch or anything. But it's -- hit a couple notes.

It gets loud.

(CROSSTALK)

COREN: Your kids must love that.

What is the inspiration behind "Hulk Elvis"?

KOONS: My son, Sean, was I guess 3 at the time. And we have a full- length mirror in our bedroom. And he went up and he stood in front of the mirror and I looked at him and I realized that he had Andy Warhol's "Elvis"

puzzle, of Elvis here like. And I realized that Andy's painting of Elvis was full portraiture. And it was kind of a sense of male identity at a

young age.

And when I saw a Hulk inflatable, I was able to connect the two.

COREN: Let's discuss what's being described as one of the wildest episodes in 20th century art, and that of course is your "Made in Heaven"

series, which was inspired by your first wife, Italian porn star Ilona Staller.

You saw her in a magazine.

Was it love at first sight?

KOONS: I was intrigued. And I was working on my "Banality" work. And in making these sculptures out of wood and porcelain, I was working

with artisans in Southern Germany and Northern Italy. And I would have to show them colors of flesh so that they would know how to paint some of the

sculpture.

So one time when I was paying for my cappuccino, I looked and I saw this magazine and my ex-wife was on the cover. And I never saw images that

were similar in a men's magazine, because there was this Eastern European kind of fantasy. And I also then found out that she was in Italian

parliament. So I was kind of intrigued.

But I never made contact with her. And then the Whitney Museum asked me to make a billboard about media for a show that they were making called

"Image World." And I thought, you know, I'll hire that porn star, Italian politician, and I won't change anything. I want her just to use the sets

that she normally uses, the photographer, the lighting. I won't change anything. I'll do that. I'll position myself in the photo with her and

I'll make it like making a film. And I'll call it "Made in Heaven Starring Jeff Koons and Cicciolina."

COREN: The paintings and sculptures that you created some described as pornographic; others said that they were mind-blowing. And artist Dan

Colen, he used the words, "It was a border-less, boundary-less, body of work."

What you did went beyond Duchamp, Warhol, beyond the readymade.

KOONS: With the "Made in Heaven" work, I realized that people still have a hard time with self-acceptance so a lot of times sexuality is at the

basis of people not accepting themselves. And so I wanted to use the body as a metaphor for this type of acceptance.

COREN: (INAUDIBLE) sexuality thrown in people's faces. Was the idea to shock?

KOONS: No. I would say it was in the tradition of kind of the avant- garde, but I wanted to communicate with people. But I wanted to make work in the tradition of Boucher and Fragonard. And what happened was I hired

my ex-wife as a model for the shots. And when we were making the photo shoots, we started to flirt with each other.

And we fell in love and so it turned out it was absolutely wonderful. And I was very, very deeply in love; it didn't work out. Ilona and I, we

have a son, Ludwig. And we have a fantastic son.

COREN: You mentioned that your marriage didn't work out and there was a bitter custody battle over your son that ensued. That must have been a

very painful time in your life.

KOONS: It was. And it was a time that I was very distracted for a while because I put all my energies in trying to get my son, Ludwig, back.

But I was losing faith in humanity. And I really turned to my art. And my art really kind of saved me from losing that faith.

And I decided just to make work that I could communicate to him at the same time as trying to make relevant work to everybody, to the world, but

to communicate to him how much I was thinking about him during that time.

COREN: And that, of course, was your "Celebration" series.

KOONS: That's correct, yes.

But the work also has to function on another level, too. The "Balloon Dog" could be like for a birthday party, the joy and wonderment. But at

the same time, it's like a Trojan horse and that darker side to it is part of the experience that I was having.

COREN: The "Celebration" series, however, almost sent you broke.

KOONS: Well, there's a complexity. It was difficult in making some of the works. I would say it was the lawyer bills that brought the

pressure. Yes, yes, not the art.

COREN: Now The Louvre is going to exhibit a selection of your "Balloon" sculptures. That is quite an honor.

KOONS: The Louvre will show three of my large balloon animals. And so I'm absolutely thrilled. And to show at The Louvre to really be engaged

with the history of art and with artists like Poussin and Leonardo and Michelangelo and Bernini, just everybody.

COREN: Now I understand that Led Zeppelin is one of your favorite bands. You've listened to them every day. And you are now working with

their lead guitarist, Jimmy Page, on a project. Tell us about that.

KOONS: I can't say that I'm working with Jimmy on a project. I just interviewed Jimmy in New York and it was really to celebrate the release of

his new book, "Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page." And it's a photographic autobiography. But it was fantastic because I really learned as a human

being how to feel through listening to Led Zeppelin. I mean, being 14 and hearing that music, my life changed. I told Jimmy that what I'm interested

in is what Jimmy's doing now and what he wants to do in the future and that if he does do something in the future, I hope that he would ask me to

design the cover of it.

COREN: How do you want people to remember you and your work?

KOONS: That, to the best of my limitations, I try to perform at my highest level. I tried to be a good human being, a good father and the

best artist I could be.

COREN: Well, Jeff Koons, a pleasure to meet you.

KOONS: Anna, thank you. It's wonderful.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

END