Balloon Dog (Blue) 2002

One of the most famous artists working today, Jeff Koons makes gleeful, tongue-in-cheek sculptures, paintings, and installations that border—and often cross—the edge of good taste. Exploring ideas of commodity, spectacle, celebrity, and consumption, Koons has made monumental balloon dogs, a series about his lusty relationship with Italian porn star Cicciolina, cast-aluminum pool toys, a gold-painted porcelain sculpture of Michael Jackson, and a giant sculpture that resembles both Play-Doh and a heap of dung. Though the artist resists complex interpretations of his work, Koons’s innovative fabrication processes have elevated him far above the designation of simple provocateur. Koons received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and has exhibited extensively in New York, London, Chicago, Basel, Seoul, and elsewhere. His work belongs in the collections of The Broad, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. His work has sold for nearly $100 million on the secondary market.