The Painter and the Sculptor

The provocative art of Jeff Koons (*1955) leaves no one cold. The “king of kitsch” is skilled at manipulating the media, exploding the boundaries of all genres with his appropriations from Pop Art and popular culture, and playing the keyboard of the art market like no other. Collectors scramble for his large collages and colossal stainless-steel balloon animals. Yet, in his eye-poppingly colorful, immaculately perfect works Koons also exposes the seductive potential of the glittering world of commodities; his ready-mades and gigantic toys are amusing and thought provoking at the same time. The American artist’s once controversial work has now been recognized for its prescience. This publication presents his oeuvre in two volumes: paintings from all of the artist’s creative phases form the core of the first volume. Koons’ sculptures are the focal point of the second volume, in which objects from the Liebieghaus collection, stemming from five thousand years of cultural history, are placed in a dialogue with his works.