Jeff Koons is one of the world’s most sought-after artists. “I’ve made what the Beatles would have made if they had made sculpture,” he once declared brazenly. “Nobody ever said that the Beatles’ music was not on a high level, but it appealed to a mass audience. That is what I want to do.” In 2013 his sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at auction for $58.4 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art by a living artist.

In Chicago you worked as a studio assistant for Chicago Ed Paschke, who would take you out to local bars and strip joints.

At that time I had very little money. To support myself I worked at the membership desk at the Museum of Modern Art. I think my rent was $125 a month, but I painted my apartment, I decorated it. Every square inch was covered with artwork. Eventually I reached a point where I couldn’t live like that anymore. I couldn’t live in a dilapidated apartment. So one day I just moved over to Chelsea and rented an apartment with absolutely no clutter at all. There I would show my encased vacuum cleaners (The New) and that would be it. I’d even hide my bed.

I loved the Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Dr. Eric Kandel’s response to your exhibition “Gazing Ball.” He said, “When you looked at the sculptures you saw yourself embedded in the gazing balls. Artists sometimes put mirrors in works, but they don’t design the work so that you find yourself in the arms or chest of a statue, which is what Jeff did.”

I enjoy my studio more and more every day. When I was younger I made everything myself. At a certain point I started working with fabrication companies. I didn’t have a studio then and I was traveling all the time. I would spend two weeks in Europe, two weeks in the United States, two weeks in Europe, back and forth constantly. In 1991 I decided to refocus and just have a studio experience, where I could oversee production all the time. I never wanted to be in a room by myself. I like being with people. It gives me the opportunity to work in a lot of different media, from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional. If I was to create a sculpture from this vase of flowers, some might interpret that violet as a little more red than I do, or they might interpret the shape not to be as round. I want to remove the personal subjectivity, so the production is like that of a machine but with the generosity of the human touch.

Through 10/24 Sullivan Galleries 33 S. State 312-629-6635saic.edu/sullivangalleries Free