Installation view of ‘Jeff Koons: At The Ashmolean’, Oxford. Photography: David Fisher. Courtesy of Ashmolean

Jeff Koons is back. The American artist and art commerce kingpin has just opened his latest show at Oxford’s Ashmolean, the world’s oldest public museum. Seventeen significant works – 14 of which make their first appearance on UK soil – span the artist’s career and radically distinctive oeuvre including Equilibrium, Antiquity and Gazing Ball in a show curated by Koons himself and his long-term friend and collaborator, Sir Norman Rosenthal.

杰夫·昆斯回来了。这位美国艺术家和艺术商业巨头刚刚在世界上最古老的公共博物馆-牛津的阿什莫尔博物馆(Ashmolean)开幕了他的最新展览。17件重要的作品-其中14件首次出现在英国土地上-跨越了这位艺术家的职业生涯，并在昆斯本人和他的长期朋友和合作者诺曼·罗森塔尔爵士的主持下举办了一场由库恩斯本人和他的长期朋友和合作者诺曼·罗森塔尔爵士主持的展览。

Since he burst onto the scene in the early 1980s, the former Wall Street stock jockey came to embody the blue collar, blue chip creative, not least because of the stunning market value of his work. We watched in awe and outrage as the new boy in town spun kitsch into a high art amid a mob of gutsy neo-expressionists. Releasing that Made in Heaven series of 1991 – a billboard depicting the artist’s coital jaunts with then-wife, porn star and politician, Cicciolina – saw him ascend to new heights of notoriety and net worth.

自从上世纪80年代初，这位前华尔街股票骑师突然出现以来，他就开始体现蓝领、蓝筹股的创意，尤其是因为他的作品具有惊人的市场价值。我们怀着敬畏和愤怒的心情看着城里的新男孩在一群大胆的新表现主义者中把媚俗变成了一门高雅的艺术。发布了1991年的“天堂制造”系列-一个广告牌，描绘了艺术家与当时的妻子、色情明星和政治家Cicciolina的合影-看到他登上了声名狼藉和净资产的新高峰。

Gazing Ball (Titian Diana and Actaeon), 2014–15, by Jeff Koons, oil on canvas, glass, and aluminium. Collection of the artist. © Jeff Koons. Photography: Tom Powel Imaging. Courtesy of Gagosian

“凝视球”(Titian Diana And Actaeon)，2014-15年，杰夫·昆斯(Jeff Koons)著，油画，玻璃和铝。艺术家的收藏。杰夫·昆斯。摄影：汤姆·鲍威尔影像。Gagosian

Koons’ work is a vacuum of the art canon, a notion he executed in very literal terms in early work: everyday objects like vacuum cleaners, basketballs and twee household ornaments were elevated onto the pedestal of high art. This is an artist who once compared his own work to Francis Picabia and his studio to Raphael’s. Unlike these historical titans, Koons’ art brokerage – an industrial-scale studio based in Hudson Yards, New York – is far from a one-man operation.

昆斯的作品是艺术经典的真空，这是他在早期作品中用非常字面的术语表达的一个概念：像吸尘器、篮球和推特家居装饰品等日常用品都被提升到了高艺术的底座上。这位艺术家曾经把自己的作品与弗朗西斯·皮卡比亚和他的工作室比作拉斐尔的作品。与这些历史上的巨人不同，昆斯的艺术经纪公司-一家位于纽约哈德逊船厂的工业规模的工作室-远非一人经营。

Over time, he has devised a rigorous colour-by-numbers system using meticulously trained assistants executing each piece as if done by Koons’ own hand. But as the 1990s arrived, this method of art production proved to be anything but financially watertight, costing so much and taking so long that it brought Koons and his empire to the brink of bankruptcy.

随着时间的推移，他设计了一个严格的彩色编号系统，使用经过精心训练的助手执行每一件作品，就好像是由昆斯自己的手完成的一样。但随着上世纪90年代的到来，这种艺术创作方式被证明绝不是财务上的麻烦，成本太高，耗时太长，以至于昆斯和他的帝国濒临破产。

‘I’ve always performed very intuitively as an artist. I like to think of the body and the mind together.’

“我一直都很直观地表现为艺术家。我喜欢把身体和头脑结合在一起。”

Koons arrives at the exhibition – minus any entourage – typically suited and noticeably reputed by all who gawp like magpies at his cluster of shiny things. He delivers a demure, mild-mannered speech, which feels more ‘self-help’ than ‘self-promotion’. ‘I’ve always performed very intuitively as an artist. I like to think of the body and the mind together,’ he reflects.

昆斯来到展览时-没有任何随行人员-通常都是合适的，而且所有的人都会像喜鹊一样盯着他那一群闪闪发光的东西。他发表了一场端庄、温和的演讲，感觉比“自我推销”更像是“自助”。作为一名艺术家，我一直表现得非常直观。“我喜欢把身心放在一起，”他想。

It’s not long before Ashmolean visitors’ senses are inflated with the most classic of all Koons: polished stainless steel casts of cheap party balloons twisted into a crossbred rabbit and a bloated, magenta iteration of the Ice Age-era Venus of Willendorf. ‘I look at the reflection and the surfaces and I think of the philosophy, and the idea to reflect and contemplate,’ he says.

不久，阿什莫尔游客的感官就被所有昆斯人中最经典的：抛光的不锈钢铸造的廉价派对气球扭曲成一只杂交的兔子和一个臃肿的洋红色版本的冰河时代的维纳斯威伦多夫。他说：“我看到的是反射和表面，我想到的是哲学，以及思考和思考的想法。”

In recent years, Koons has scaled back his workforce, favouring computer-aided design, which has only heightened his pathological creative perfectionism. His balloon sculptures are now engineered through CT scans and data analysis, which Koons can manage on a micro scale, explaining he ‘can be responsible for every thousandth of a millimetre’.

近几年来，昆斯缩减了他的员工队伍，支持计算机辅助设计，这只会加剧他病态的创造性完美主义。他的气球雕塑现在是通过CT扫描和数据分析来设计的，昆斯可以在微观范围内完成这些工作，并解释说他“每一千毫米就能完成一次”。

In his Antiquity series (2009 onwards) Koons collages hyperrealists fusion of culture overlaid with liberal mark making and Ben-Day Dots. Antiquity 2 (Dots) sees a scantily clad Gretchen Mol playing Bettie Page and riding a dolphin. ‘It’s a representation of a desire and our biology, genes and DNA,’ he says of the series. But with their cut-and-paste classical sculptures, assortments of bodies and anonymous fleshy lumps, these feel more like a collision of Hustler magazine, a trip to the Pantheon and a mixed grill. Elsewhere, his Gazing Ball series (2012) has steel cobalt baubles hijack the most celebrated paintings and sculptures in history – posed on the shoulder of the burly Belvedere Torso, and perched on the deck of The Raft of Medusa.

在他的古物系列(2009年以后)，昆斯拼贴，超现实主义的文化融合与自由标记制作和本日点。古物2(点)看到一个衣衫褴褛的格雷琴·摩尔扮演贝蒂·佩奇和骑着一只海豚。他在谈到这个系列时说，它代表了一种欲望，也代表了我们的生物学、基因和DNA。但是他们的剪贴经典雕塑，各种各样的尸体和不知名的肉块，这些感觉更像是“赫斯特勒”杂志的碰撞，一次万神殿之旅和一场混合烧烤。在其他地方，他的“凝视之球”系列(2012)中的钴球钢饰劫持了历史上最著名的绘画和雕塑-摆在壮实的贝维迪埃躯干的肩膀上，栖息在美杜莎木筏的甲板上。

Ushering in Banality, 1988, by Jeff Koons, polychromed wood. © Jeff Koons

从1988年开始，由杰夫·科ons，PolychroMedWood。(c)杰夫·科斯

Perhaps Koons’ work is more at home at the venerable Ashmolean than at first glance. The historical treasures in this building are part of antiquity’s bloodstream, and antiquity in turn flows in Koons. ‘I had no idea about the power of art until my first art history lesson in college. Art so effortlessly connects you with all the human disciplines,’ adds the artist. ‘It’s about the removal of judgement. Art is not about high art – you don’t have to bring anything to it apart from who you are.’

也许昆斯的工作更多的是在家里，在尊敬的阿什摩尔，而不是乍一看。这座建筑中的历史珍宝是古代血脉的一部分，而古物又在昆斯流淌。直到我上大学的第一节艺术史课，我才知道艺术的力量。艺术家补充道：“艺术如此毫不费力地将你与所有人类学科联系在一起。”这是关于取消判决的。艺术不是高级艺术-除了你是谁之外，你不需要为它带来任何东西。

Koons is a lot of things: modern master of the readymade, appropriator, re-appropriator, cultural meddler and master of his own PR. But here at the Ashmolean, he has allowed past and present, priceless and the ludicrously priced to occupy the same space, as equals. ‘I couldn’t think of a better place to have a dialogue about art today and what it can be.’ §

昆斯是很多东西：现代大师的现成，合适者，再合适者，文化干预者和他自己的公关大师。但在阿什莫尔，他允许过去和现在，无价之宝和荒谬的价格占据同样的空间，平等。“我想不出有一个更好的地方来进行今天的艺术对话，以及它能是什么。”

“JeffKoons：at Ashmolean”的安装视图，牛津。摄影：大卫·费舍尔。由阿什莫尔安装视图的“杰夫昆斯：在阿什莫尔‘，牛津。摄影：大卫·费舍尔。阿什莫尔

坐巴列利纳(细节)，2010-15，由杰夫昆斯，镜面抛光不锈钢与透明的彩色涂层.艺术家珍藏杰夫·昆斯。摄影：弗雷德里克尼尔森。由Gagosian坐下巴列利纳(细节)，2010-15，杰夫昆斯，镜面抛光不锈钢与透明的彩色涂层。艺术家珍藏杰夫·昆斯。摄影：弗雷德里克尼尔森。Gagosian

2013年，由杰夫科顿，石膏和玻璃组成的凝视球（Belvedere躯干）。（艺术家的收藏）杰夫·科恩斯。摄影：汤姆·波尔成像。由Gagosian凝视球（Belvedere躯干），2013年，由杰夫科顿，石膏和玻璃提供。（艺术家的收藏）杰夫·科恩斯。摄影：汤姆·波尔成像。Gagosian的礼貌

古代1，2009-12，杰夫昆斯，油画画布。艺术家珍藏杰夫·昆斯。摄影：汤姆鲍威尔成像古物1，2009-12，杰夫昆斯，油画上。艺术家珍藏杰夫·昆斯。摄影：汤姆·鲍威尔成像