Jeff Koons

“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 t...”

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

“I went to art school... but I worked at the Museum of Modern Art. I worked in fundraising at the information membership desk. I ended up, over a period of time, doubling the amount of member...”

“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 s...”

“I believe in advertisement and media completely. My art and my personal life are based in it. I think that the art world would probably be a tremendous reservoir for everybody involved in ad...”

“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.”

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

“I produce a lot of my artwork in Germany.”

“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...”

“I always liked Disney films. To this day I think 'Bambi' is great.”

“I realised that people respond to banal things. They don't accept their own history, not participating in acceptance within their own being.”

“I'd have to say I've become more aware of my communal responsibility.”

“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...”

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

“Even in making objects, as soon as you start to get the feeling that some form of craft is coming into place, you realize that everything is wrong. Because craft is really just a fetish. It...”

“I love the gallery, the arena of representation. It's a commercial world, and morality is based generally around economics, and that's taking place in the art gallery.”

“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.”

“I would think that to people like my father, and the people of his generation, Popeye is like a male priapist. So if you think in ancient terms, he would have a harem, a symbol of male energ...”

“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.”

“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...”