Jeff Koons

“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.”

“I try to educate people about materialism through my work. I try to show them real visual luxury.”

“I enjoy all mediums, and I have to say, music is the medium that first made me understand how powerful art could be.”

“I try to be a truthful artist and I try to show a level of courage. I enjoy that. I'm a messenger.”

“Art's a very metaphysical activity. It's something that enriches the parameters of your life, the possibilities of being, and you touch transcendence and you change your life. And you want t...”

“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.”

“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'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 con...”

“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 art teaches us how to feel, what our parameters can be, what sensations can be like; it makes you more engaged with life.”

“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.”

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

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

“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 'S...”

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

“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 always like to believe that my work is about the expansion of the possibilities of the viewer. So if you have a sense of a heightened situation where there's an excitement, a physical exci...”