Bags Of Talent

His blend of highbrow and lowbrow has kept Jeff Koons at the centre of contemporary art for decades. Now he has lent his aesthetic to a collaboration with Louis Vuitton, writes Marianna Cerini

Mention Jeff Koons in the art world and you’ll get wildly divergent responses. Some will hail him as a genius, others as a charlatan. Whatever your opinion, the American artist—known for elevating children’s toys and vacuum cleaners to the stature of the Greek gods, and for bringing large-scale balloon sculptures into the hallowed halls of the Louvre—is a highly successful yet disruptive giant of contemporary art.

The impresario of power pop art is a cultural phenomenon in his own right: so established, that he is no longer affected by people’s opinions. “Some people are very engaged with art, while others are simply intimidated by it,” he says. “They haven’t come to realise that art is a tool and can be very liberating. [But], as an artist, the only thing that really matters is trusting yourself, following your interests, and focusing on them.”

Which is exactly what Koons has been doing since the ’80s, when he emerged as an innovative sculptor whose stainless steel statues—1986’s Rabbit being a famous example—won over curators, art historians, and critics, who saw in his work a dazzling contemporary update of a broad range of heathen and holy iconography.