Jeff Koons: Conversations with Norman Rosenthal - Tapa dura

'Copiously and enticingly illustrated' - Cassone 'Koons has revealing things to say on self-reliance, opportunity, the nature of luck, and above all, `culture' ... this great boundary-breaker certainly knows how to make you think' - The Mayfair Magazine 'Uncovers the real Jeff Koons for the first time' - Fused Magazine 'Essential reading' - Apollo

The most successful of living artists Jeff Koons has been a focus of creative fascination and significance for more than thirty years, but has always remained guarded about his intellectual life, influences and motivation. The distinguished curator and long-time Koons friend and collaborator Sir Norman Rosenthal has, for the first time, removed that guard. This important book provides the most revealing portrait yet of Jeff Koons’ singular personality and artistic vision. Rosenthal’s masterful interviews, conducted over four years, give unparalleled access to Koons’ thoughts, disclosing the artist undistorted and in his own words. As well as examining all his major series in depth, from his first inflatables to his latest series on antiquities, the interviews shed new light on the artist’s interest in other artists’ works, reveal the significance of his youth and family life on his art, and explain the key concepts of his practice, such as his ideas on self- acceptance, banality, ecstasy and sex.

Table of Contents

‘Everything is already here’ Art as connection to humanity and history · ‘The Ball is Going to bethrown to you’ Family and the young artist · ‘Art Empowers’ Inflatables to Kiepenkerl · ‘The true acceptance of things Banality and Celebration · ‘Looking at internal life in an open, objective way’ Easy fun and Antiquity · ‘I want to make the grandest gesture that I can’ Action and achievement · ‘The Ecstasy of smiling’ Community, communication, celebrity and commerce · ‘I feel things through ideas’ A Koons lexicon · Chronology: The Jeff Koons Timeline · Index