Hans Ulrich Obrist & Jeff Koons: The Conversation Series: Vol. 22 (Conversation (Verlag Der Buchhandlung))

Reflecting on 20 years of making art, Jeff Koons talks to Hans Ulrich Obrist about his vocation and its frequently controversial highlights. Koons makes acknowledgement here of determinative influences such as Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol, and elucidates his sense of the legacy of Pop art and his own transformations of that legacy. Koons emerges from this volume as a charmingly open and very focused artist, with strong views on the purposes of art today, and advice for practitioners: “See everything as an opportunity. Stay focused, then amazing things can happen.” Koons' goals are also inspiringly utopian and appropriate to all forms of art: “The journey of art begins with self-acceptance,” he declares at one point, espousing his ideal of art as a tool for happiness. “Objective art is about Love.”