Jeff Koons Wants Us to Pursue Our Interests

Jeff Koons has built a career transforming the everyday into objects of spectacle—his balloon animals, mirrored surfaces, and high-gloss forms reshaping the boundaries between fine art and popular culture. With a practice defined by scale, precision, and a distinctly optimistic visual language, Koons remains one of the most influential and commercially successful artists of his generation. In Évian-les-Bains, he marks another milestone: a limited-edition bottle created in honor of Evian’s 200th anniversary. Part of the brand’s “200 Years Young” campaign, the collaboration draws on Koons’ signature motifs—buoyant forms, reflective finishes, and vibrant color—to reimagine the humble water bottle as both object and artwork. The project extends Koons’ long-standing interest in elevating the familiar into something universal, joyful, and meticulously crafted.

How do you decide what to create next?

I remember decades ago, maybe about four decades ago, somebody asked me when I had a successful exhibition, ‘Aren’t you afraid it’s going to leave you?’ And I thought, what an odd thing to ask somebody after they just had a very successful exhibition. And so I thought about, well, what do I do? And I realized that I follow my interests. And I also realized that I couldn’t follow anybody else’s. I mean, there wouldn’t be any connection there. So the only thing you can do in life is follow your interests. And the other thing that I do is focus on those interests. So if you follow your interests and focus on those interests, you realize the abundance of information that we’re surrounded by.

[As an example], I’m just going to say that you’re interested in orchids. And if you are interested in orchids, you’ll notice the design of orchids everywhere. You’ll notice all different aspects, the abundance of the information or the sacred geometries—you can look at an orchid and you can see the different geometries taking place within it. And you’ll find that when you follow your interests, focus on your interests, it automatically connects you to a universal vocabulary. And that’s an area where it’s shared throughout humanity, and it’s a place where metaphysics take place, time and space bent.

I don’t think there’s one person that hasn’t practiced [this following of interests] that hasn’t experienced this type of connection. I believe in that. I have more profound connections, more bending of time and space, able to be in dialogue with ideas and meaning that is very real to me, that is really taking place across time and space with other artists, with other concepts of life.

This is such an interesting application in the world of art and creation.

It’s funny how, because I’ve been following these beliefs for quite some time and every day through scientific investigations, they’re finding that this kind of metaphysical experiences are real and that these type of the way quantum physics works, the way particles, protons are moving, that there are multiple experiences taking place. And if we look at our genes and our DNA and how they’re interconnected, you can go all the way back through human history.

Our cultural lives are interconnected too. It’s just that it’s on the external part of our body. But as we know, true communication takes place between our inner being and the external world and we affect each other. If the external world, if I’m interacting in it, it changes who I am. It changes my synapses in my brain. I become a different person. And then my experience on the environment has an impact on the environment.

This back and forth is real. This is culture. And culture is interconnected and we’re interconnected with culture. We both need to be nurtured to be sustained. Culture can be destroyed and life can be destroyed. As an artist, I hope that I’m able to generate ideas and images that have meaning embedded that can also kind of nourish us to celebrate our shared values. And so [this Evian] bottle is a celebration [of that], and the art behind it is really about celebrating what we can become.

What drew you to this collaboration?

I was very happy when Evian contacted me and they mentioned they wanted to celebrate their 200 years young. That’s an amazing accomplishment to be able to serve the public for 200 years. So I was really thrilled and honored to participate. I wanted to design something that could have this kind of joyous, festive quality. So using balloons, kind of a party type aspect, but to try to also, in a way, connect to the larger picture about caring. So there were a lot of details that went into creating a design like this, the kind of material sciences just to be able to make something that would have the color on the outside, the silver, and on the inside, on the flat water, the pink, and on the sparkling water, the blue. And to be able to have it printed with this type of clarity, a lot of thought and attention to design, material sciences went into it.

How long were you working on the project?

I would say probably a little over a year’s time. I’d say somewhere between a year and a half to a year.

How did you approach translating your work for a global brand?

I really love universal vocabulary. And so I believe that the design incorporates a universal vocabulary, [which is] that of joy and of optimism [and] of celebration. And also, that of caring. I mean, Evian as a company creates the best water they can. They take our health into consideration. They’re taking care of us so we can really kind of have a joyous life. We can experience health, and we can stay young, as youthful as possible by keeping ourselves healthy.

This type of care, it’s the same as artists or anybody that gets involved profoundly within what they do. It’s about the transcending and sharing of information. And it always comes down to care. Being able to try to embed meaning into acts. And if somebody’s making an artwork or creating a poem, they’re trying to embed meaning to be able to pass on to other people. And it’s the same with making products. It’s trying to make something that is the best that you can, and to be able to let people know the respect that you’re showing them in the act of doing that. I really find caring is the greatest activity that you can participate in. Everything else comes after that. Aesthetics. It’s all about first caring and being able to show others that they are as relevant as [any other].

What do you hope your legacy communicates?

I would hope that my legacy that maybe people could find that I helped open up some aspects of life and of communication, the arts, that there is no place for hierarchy, there is no hierarchy, that you can experience something and you can have the same type of profoundness and meaning in your life from that experience as you would from something that culture may have placed over time as being important. But that importance in the long run isn’t what’s relevant. It’s how you can come across something that you find meaning in. Art only happens within you. I believe what art is, is the essence of your own potential. It’s not the objects or the words we may read or the songs that we hear, because they are things that can excite us, stimulate us. They’re like transponders, but the actual art is the essence of our own transcendence. It’s being able to become vaster. That’s the generosity that these things give to us.

What sustains you outside of your work?

People. And I would have to say first and foremost, my family, and then the community around me, and then going outward to the global community and to try to serve that community and to whatever my limitations are as an individual, to try to live up to those limitations and try to expand them, to become a better human being, a better parent, a better husband, a better person in my community, a better artist, but to serve. And that’s where I think we can find that not only can we have experience and we can enjoy becoming, but then to share that experience with others to serve is really the greatest calling.