MIAMI — The artist Jeff Koons’ famous sculptures could appear like they are produced from balloons — but the operates are actually fragile, as a single art truthful attendee found out when she knocked around a $42,000 Koons piece Thursday, leading to it to shatter.
A blue balloon pet dog sculpture established by Koons broke into tiny shards when a customer accidentally kicked its podium, in accordance to the gallery internet hosting the piece.
Bel-Air Wonderful Art was displaying the piece at its booth at Artwork Wynwood, a modern art good in Miami.
In a statement shared with CNN over e-mail, the gallery’s district manager, Cédric Boero, who was handling the Art Wynwood booth, instructed CNN that the gallery serves as “1 of the formal associates for the popular Jeff Koons balloon canine sculptures.”
“Of system it is heartbreaking to see this kind of an iconic piece destroyed,” explained Boero.
He reported the piece fell immediately after an unnamed artwork collector viewing the booth unintentionally kicked the pedestal for the duration of the fair’s opening cocktail hour Thursday evening.
“The collector hardly ever supposed to crack the sculpture, in point she by no means touched it with her fingers,” he mentioned. “It was the opening cocktail, heaps of folks were being on our booth, she gave unintentionally a minor kick in the pedestal, which was adequate to lead to the sculpture to drop down.”
“This variety of matter however transpires, that is why the artwork was coated by insurance coverage,” he mentioned.
The gallery shared pictures of the sculpture minimized to scraps of ceramic lying on the flooring.
The 2021 piece was entitled “Balloon Doggy (Blue)” and valued at about $42,000, according to an e-mail from Bel-Air Good Artwork. The sculpture was designed of porcelain and measured 40 x 48 x 16 cm. A complete of 799 editions of the sculpture had been made.
Koons and Artwork Wynwood did not instantly reply to CNN’s request for comment.
Koons’ balloon animal figures are some of the most iconic — and pricey — sculptures in the modern art earth. His pieces have fetched jaw-dropping sums at auction: “Rabbit” (1986) marketed for $91 million at Christie’s New York in 2019, and “Balloon Doggy (Orange)” (1994-2000) offered for $58.4 million six a long time before.
He has developed hundreds of renditions of the balloon canines, some of them towering over 10 ft tall, and some of them just in excess of a foot tall, like the sculpture that shattered.
