But Is It Even Art?

Who once sold a balloon animal for nearly $60 million, what was then a record-setting sum for a living artist?

In an article comparing the contemporary art scene with show business, renowned critic Robert Hughes wrote that Jeff Koons is

"an extreme and self-satisfied manifestation of the sanctimony that attaches to big bucks. Koons really does think he's Michelangelo and is not shy to say so. The significant thing is that there are collectors, especially in America, who believe it. He has the slimy assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida. And the result is that you can't imagine America's singularly depraved culture without him."^[157]

Robert Hughes. "Showbiz and the Art World", The Guardian, 30 June 2004. 

See Wikipedia entry for Jeff Koons.  

• Early in his career, Koons wore a thin mustache and dyed his hair red, an homage to his idol, Salvadore Dali. 
• Koons studied at both the Art Institute of Chicago and MICA
• Also early in his career, Koons worked on Wall Street as a commodities broker to finance his early installations and be "free of the art market."

What artist is perhaps best known for his Birth of Venus?