Interview

Pop art emperor Jeff Koons remembers his childhood and his earliest work. Watch his interview.  VIDEO PUBLISHED: 11/26/08

Walt Disney may have invented the theme park, but Jeff Koons is the undisputed all-American master when it comes to filling the physical world with outsize work that deftly reflects all the mixed-up dreams, romances, anxieties, and desires of the psychological one. And if it seems like his big, brash, and occasionally mind-boggling art has taken on a life of its own recently, then it's with good reason: Because everything is going according to plan.  ARTICLE PUBLISHED: 11/26/08

First he outraged art audiences in the early 1990s with works like his shark in formaldehyde. (The New York city department of health banned one piece on the grounds that it might induce vomiting.) Then he outraged critics with tactics like decorating a cast of a human skull with 8,601 diamonds worth more than $20 million. Now, the ultimate British bad boy has outraged dealers by skipping the gallery and selling his work at auction. He may have just been making a little Hirst-style mischief-or changing the state of the art market forever.  ARTICLE PUBLISHED: 11/26/08

He's a brilliant renaissance technician with hip-hop subject matter. His latest work focuses on young black men in a sadly familiar posture: Down. But in a world where bad is good, being down is not always such a bad thing.  ARTICLE PUBLISHED: 11/19/08