Do we like Jeff Koons?
Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words or acts found and one real memorial gift, but copyright rulings, a Epstein-files mention and a thin record on his views keep it mid-table.
The big news this year is a legal win that isn't quite a win. In July the Second Circuit upheld the dismissal of Michael Hayden's claim over a snake sculpture he made for Ilona Staller, who appears in Koons's Made in Heaven series. The panel said Hayden filed too late and never decided whether copying happened. So Koons is clear in the US, but the question stays open.
Koons has a long history of being sued for borrowing other people's images, which is part of his whole appropriation game. In 2018 a Paris court found his sculpture Fait d'hiver copied a 1985 Naf Naf ad and rejected his parody defence. He, his company, the Pompidou Centre and a publisher were ordered to pay nearly US$170,000 to the ad's creator. The same report notes a 2017 French ruling over another work, Naked.
Then there's the money side. In 2018 collector Steven Tananbaum sued Koons and Gagosian in New York, alleging three paid-for sculptures were never delivered and comparing the arrangement to a Ponzi scheme. Reps for Koons and the gallery hadn't responded when Fortune ran it, and the article reported no outcome. It's an allegation only, but it is part of the picture.
The Epstein files are the other thing readers will ask about. In February Koons said, via his gallery, that he attended one 2013 dinner at Jeffrey Epstein's home and had no relationship with him beyond it. He denied Epstein ever visited his studio, although a schedule in the files mentions a plan to see it. No wrongdoing by Koons is alleged in what I read, but it's a name you'd rather not see in that pile.
On the harm test, I went looking for anything he's said or done against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet and found nothing. I also found nothing on who he campaigns for or platforms, so this is a pass on a thin record rather than a glowing one. Faith and politics don't come into it, because there's simply no material.
The good stuff is real, if a bit controversial in execution. In 2016 he announced he was donating Bouquet of Tulips to Paris to commemorate the 2015 attacks, with the US$3.8 million cost raised from private donors. Plenty of Parisians hated the look of it, but the gesture was his.