Jeff Koons - Evaluation and Influence

Evaluation and Influence

Koons has received extreme reactions to his work. Critic Amy Dempsey described his Balloon Dog as "an awesome presence... a massive durable monument." Jerry Saltz at artnet.com enthused that it was possible to be "wowed by the technical virtuosity and eye-popping visual blast" of Koons's art.

Mark Stevens of The New Republic dismissed him as a "decadent artist lacks the imaginative will to do more than trivialize and italicise his themes and the tradition in which he works... He is another of those who serve the tacky rich." Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times saw "one last, pathetic gasp of the sort of self-promoting hype and sensationalism that characterized the worst of the 1980s" and called Koons's work "artificial," "cheap" and "unabashedly cynical."

In an article comparing the contemporary art scene with show business, renowned critic Robert Hughes wrote that Koons is “an extreme and self-satisfied manifestation of the sanctimony that attaches to big bucks. Koons really does think he's Michelangelo and is not shy to say so. The significant thing is that there are collectors, especially in America, who believe it. He has the slimy assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida. And the result is that you can't imagine America's singularly depraved culture without him.” Hughes placed Koons's work just above that of Seward Johnson and was quoted in a New York Times article as having stated that comparing their careers was "like debating the merits of dog excrement versus cat excrement".

To the question “Is it important that your work be famous?”, Koons replied: "There’s a difference between being famous and being significant. I’m interested in significance — anything that can enrich our lives and make them vaster — but I’m really not interested in the idea of fame for fame’s sake."

He has influenced younger artists such as Damien Hirst (for example, in Hirst's Hymn, an 18 ft (5.5 m) version of a 14 in (0.36 m) anatomical toy) and Mona Hatoum. In turn, his extreme enlargement of mundane objects owes a debt to Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Much of his work also was influenced by artists working in Chicago during his study at the Art Institute, including Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, and H. C. Westermann.

In 2005, he was elected as a Fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.