2014 Walter Annenberg Lecture: Jeff Koons

During the past three decades, Jeff Koons has become one of the most popular, influential, and controversial living artists. He has consistently tested the boundaries between art and mass culture and pushed the limits of industrial fabrication to realize works of great beauty and emotional intensity. By elevating familiar objects—inflatable toys, vacuum cleaners, basketballs—to the realm of art, Koons shines a hard light on the world in which we live and art’s place within our culture. In this tenth Annenberg Lecture and on the occasion of the exhibition Jeff Koons: A Retrospective (June 27–October 19, 2014), the artist speaks in conversation with Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director. In honor of the late Walter H. Annenberg, philanthropist, patron of the arts, and former ambassador, the Whitney Museum of American Art established the Walter Annenberg Annual Lecture to advance this country’s understanding of its art and culture. Support for this lecture and for public programs at the Whitney Museum is provided, in part, by Jack and Susan Rudin in honor of Beth Rudin DeWoody, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Barker Welfare Foundation, and by members of the Whitney’s Education Committee.