Top 40 Jeff Koons Quotes

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.

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.

Feelings are at the basis of all ideas. First you have feelings, and then, through those sensations, it develops into ideas.

I’m interested in power.

I believe that art has been a vehicle for me that’s been about enlightenment and expanding my own parameters, to give me courage to exercise the freedom that I have in life.

I think about my work every minute of the day.

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

A lot of times, my work is looked at very much on the surface. It’s very easy to just want to put something in a box – to say, ‘Oh, since this work deals with surface desires at times, this is about consumerism.’ And of course, the base of the work is… not about economics at all.

I always liked Disney films. To this day I think ‘Bambi’ is great.

I remember being an art student and going to the Whitney in 1974 to see the exhibition of Jim Nutt, the Chicago imagist. It was then I transferred to school in Chicago, all because of that show.

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

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.

From the time that I was a child, I loved interacting with people. I would go around door-to-door and sell candies and gift-wrapping paper, and it was a great way to interact with people and communicate with people.

I like to look at everything and appreciate seeing the different things that have meaning to people.

I produce a lot of my artwork in Germany.

I don’t believe that artists really are interested in money. That’s not the motivation for art.

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 believe that my art gets across the point that I’m in this morality theater trying to help the underdog, and I’m speaking socially here, showing concern and making psychological and philosophical statements for the underdog.

Every day I wake up and I really try to pinch myself to take advantage of today and to use that freedom of gesture to do what I really like to do.

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.

Art helped give me confidence.

Art was something I could do better. It gave me a sense of self.

Art is about profundity. It’s about connecting to everything that it means to be alive, but you have to act.

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.

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.

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.

I spend much more time looking at art history and at different references to art than I do at actual objects.

Art has this ability to allow you to connect back through history in the same way that biology does. I’m always looking for source material.

I’d have to say I’ve become more aware of my communal responsibility.

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

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.

For me, art really starts with acceptance, self trust. Wherever you come to with art, it’s perfect. You don’t have to come with anything. What you bring to something is the art. That’s where it’s found. It’s found within you.

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

Art to me is a humanitarian act and I believe that there is a responsibility that art should somehow be able to effect mankind, to make the word a better place.

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

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

As an artist, I’ve always wanted to participate in the dialogue of art with other artists.

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.