What Jeff Koons Can’t Live Without

David was a good friend, and I think that the Station to Station album is a wonderful album. David enjoyed Nina Simone and her song “Wild Is the Wind.” So I always liked the idea that there is some kind of connection between “Word on a Wing” and “Wild Is the Wind.” It’s similar. It’s a spiritual song. It’s about connecting and transcending, and it’s a testimony song. It’s very moving. I like to listen to the song while I’m getting ready in the morning, and I used to listen on my Macintosh system, but the way we listen to music has changed over the years. So now I listen on a small speaker.

I eat exactly 24 pistachios every day. I started doing this maybe about 15 years ago because I love pistachios and I want to be sure that there’s a certain fixed amount of fat that I get from nuts every day. And now I am becoming a fan of Dubai chocolate.

I was in Washington, D.C., at the National Gallery maybe about three years ago. While there, I was looking at the painting of the Madonna that’s on the cover of this catalogue and I had a moment where I understood that Raphael was referencing not only the harmonies of design and sacred geometry but that he was looking at sculptural relief and playing with different perspectives. I was really moved by that. And I saw that within the exhibition at the Met, one part of the exhibition that I really like is that they show one of Raphael’s early deposition paintings where he was looking at the sides of a sarcophagus in the tombs as a reference for the work. That’s also sculptural relief. Anyway, it’s a beautiful show that goes deep and shows the way Raphael gathered information, the way he designed his work, how prodigious he was, and just how remarkable of a human being he was. And it’s a fantastic catalogue that goes through every aspect of his life.

I love all Scorsese films. But I just find The Wolf of Wall Street to be such a magical animated film. I mean, some of the scenes of Leonardo DiCaprio getting out of the Ferrari and being so intoxicated on quaaludes or something. It’s just amazing the sense of realism that you can have in a fantasy vehicle. I mean, when I say a vehicle, I mean the film. He’s able to capture the play on time, the scenes, the humor of fighting on the floor with the telephones. He’s an amazing director. I think the whole film is a ride and it captures very much the ’80s. Margot Robbie is amazing in the film, so is the whole cast, Leonardo is amazing.

When people think about reflection, a lot of times they’ll think about a mirror and they’ll go to the myth of Narcissus where reflection is looked at as a negative. But really, to look at oneself and go inward and accept oneself is the basis of everything. And once you do that, you’re able to open yourself up to the world and to be in dialogue with the world and with communication. So that’s why I like to use these silver markers because I enjoy the aspect of reflectivity and I like making a connection to reflection. If I’m signing certain things or making a drawing, most times I’ll use a Pilot silver paint marker.

I enjoy stoic philosophy, and I believe in the clarity of Marcus Aurelius’s thinking, and my children are interested in his philosophy as well. I think some of what pulled me to being an artist was that it embraced all the human disciplines, including philosophy. And this book incorporates so much of the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, like embracing every aspect of our lives and trying to be conscious of how we can be in control of this experience as much as possible. I don’t have any first editions or anything like that, but I do treasure it and come back to it often.

evian makes the best water and I really believe in the product, so I was thrilled to design two bottles for the brand’s 200th anniversary. When I make something, I spend all my time making sure the details are done right to show respect to the viewer, and working with evian we tried to capture that same attention to detail. The blue and pink balloon dogs on the surface of the water bottles have silver on the inside and wrap around like a strand of DNA. They represent this kind of profoundness and connection to our internal being — our bodies — and the benefits of the water for our health and how that lets us enjoy life and feel younger.