Thames & Hudson Jeff Koons: Lost in America

Edited by curator Masimilliano Gioni, this book focuses in particular on Koons’ art as seen in relation to contemporary American culture. With his aesthetics of plenitude and his pop-up dreams of social mobility and acceptance, throughout his career Koons has composed a “fantasy America […] custom-made from art and schmaltz and emotions” ―to use Warhol’s description of his own interpretation of American culture. Through the inclusion of source materials, personal recollections and biographical narratives, the book reads each of Koons’ celebrated series through the prism of his biography and the ways in which his individual history intersects with that of his country and culture. Ranging from his upbringing in rural Pennsylvania to his fascination for popular culture and vernacular art, the publication composes an unconventional view of Jeff Koons and his work, retracing the personal influences and cultural histories that have shaped Koons’s unique formal vocabulary. Published to accompany the major exhibition in Doha in March 2021, the catalogue features an interview with Jeff Koons by the curator, and essays by the well-known art critic Dodie Kazanjian and the Qatari-American writer and artist Sophia Al Maria.