It was blue, shiny, and depicted a dog made from a balloon—but it was glass and no longer exists. One of several sculptures by artist Jeff Koons known as Balloon Dogs shattered on the floor at the Art Wynwood fair in Miami on Thursday after a female collector accidentally knocked it to the ground, reports say. average international.
The visitor, who is not identified, was at Art Wynwood in a special preview for guests and laid the small sculpture on the floor. It shattered immediately and, according to the British daily The Guardianthere were even those who thought that it was a performance. But not. The little blue dog was worth 39,200 euros and its cost will now be covered by the fair organization’s insurance.
“I saw a woman partying [à escultura] and then it fell and broke into a thousand pieces”, said the artist Stephen Gamson to a Miami television channel, quoted now by guardian. The same witness added, this time to the diary miami herald, that when the work fell to the ground “it was like when a car accident attracts a crowd on a highway”. Cédric Boero, an employee of the Bel-Air Fine Art galleries, told the New York Times that “life just stopped for 15 minutes, with everyone around”.
There are hundreds of Balloon Dogs by Jeff Koons — in this case and in this series of 799 pieces, as the BBC points out, there is now one less.
Jeff Koons was not present and has yet to say anything about the case; what remains of the sculpture is attracting some attention, with the same Stephen gamson saying on Instagram who tried to buy what was left of her. “It has a lot of history cool“, he writes.
In May 2019, the sculpture Rabbitby Koons, sold for $91 million (€81 million) at Christie’s auction, setting a new record for the amount paid for a piece by a living artist.