The NEA announced its latest string of grant recipients this week, with $35.6 million earmarked for a range of projects that “demonstrate the vitality of the humanities across our nation” according to Shelly C. Lowe, the endowment’s chairwoman, and “support humanities programs and opportunities for underserved students and communities.”
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Jeff Koons
b. 1955
Lives and works in:
New York City
Represented by:
Education includes:
Art Institute of Chicago
Maryland College of Art
Jeff Koons is one of the most well known names in contemporary art. His work, with images extracted from popular and kitsch culture, has been the focus of many museum solo exhibitions, such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Bilbao Guggenheim, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Koons gained recognition in the 1980s when he was associated with the American art movement, Neo-Geo, which aimed at critiquing the commercialization and mechanization of contemporary society. Koons, whose methods of critique come in the form of parody and appropriation, works with an acute awareness of his art-historical precedents, namely Pop Art and the Duchampian Ready-Made. His work explores many contemporary issues regarding sex, class, desire, race, celebrity, media and much more.
Rarely fabricating the work himself, Koons is known for his large-scale sculpture. Playing with the space between kitsch, everyday objects and high art, Koons has created much buzz and controversy surrounding his work. Rabbit (1986), which is a large, polished stainless steel sculpture of an oversized balloon rabbit, is an example of this. In this work and similar works, the viewer is able to see their own reflection in the object itself. Focusing more on ideas than objects, Koons’ work begs (albeit with a certain lightness) the viewer to question contemporary society and its products.
Jeff Koons Met rooftop exhibition April 29- October 26, 2008 [ ArtObserved]
Diamond Blue sale [ArtObserved]
Jeff Koons Plans Floating Train [ArtObserved]
