Jeff Koons- 2/5/14

Jeff Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and also in his hometown of York, Pennsylvania. Koons studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Maryland Institute College of Art. While in college, Koons met another fellow artist Ed Paschke, who became a major influence of his . He was also a studio assistant for Paschke. After that he worked himself through the line at the Museum of Modern Art, as a membership worker, and also a artist. Jeff continued to raise up as a mid 1980s artist. He set up a factory like studio in downtown New York City. 

 Koons received multiple awards from places all over the world. Places that he has gotten awards from the areas as Berlin, France and London. In 2013 he received the U.S. State Department's Medal of Arts, a huge award. Among artists he would be considered a Neo Pop or Post- Pop artist. This art was a movement of minimalism and conceptualism. Koons resists such comments saying, "A viewer might at first see irony in my work... but I see none at all. Irony causes too much critical contemplation". Koons' crucial point is to reject any hidden meaning in his artwork. The meaning is only what one perceives at first glance; there is no gap between what the work is in itself and what is perceived.  He has caused controversy by the elevation of unashamed kitsch into the high-art arena, exploiting more throwaway subjects than, for example, Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans. His work Balloon Dog (1994–2000) is based on balloons twisted into shape to make a toy dog.  Yet for all his assumed faults, Koons is also praised by some art critics.While Koons is an artist, and a good one at that, I don't necessarily love him. I like his work, but he has taken a lot of very famous art and copied it for a better say. He also has said that he doesn't love art, but loves the money that is made from it. Because of that, I do not fully enjoy him.