Jeff Koons interview with Mark Lawson

The artist Jeff Koons broke the record for the highest price paid for a work of art by a living artist, when his Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at auction for $58,405,000 last year. A major retrospective of Koons's work is opening at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York in 2014. Jeff Koons talks to Mark about whether the vast prices paid for his art affect his work, and explains why we should not be afraid of contemplating contemporary art work.

I think communication’s important and to try to inform people that they’re perfect and that art demands nothing of them. What art actually is, is a realisation of their own possibilities in this world, to have their parameters expand and to have their life experience become vaster and that’s what art is, art is about your possibilities it’s nothing other than that.

I think that art shouldn’t demand anything of anybody and that when you are viewing something, that when you are confronting it, nothing is demanded of you, if you happen to have information that could help you have more connections, have greater consciousness of this interaction, that’s wonderful and you can find even more significance in that experience. There are no judgements, there is no place for judgements in this world and by removing judgements you are able to remove anxiety. You can have a much greater sense of consciousness.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03nt8jf time:21:40