A woman accidentally smashed a balloon dog sculpture at an art gallery in Miami, US, causing $42,000 (C$57,000) in damage.
Collector smashes $42,000 sculpture at Miami’s Art Wynwood – Chron
The girl decided to check whether the work of Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog” really corresponds to the name and met it. Shards were strewn all over the hall because it was blue china. pic.twitter.com/LHyKElBpLQ
— Себастьян Перейро 🦋🇺🇦🇨🇭 (@stringerukraine) February 18, 2023
It was Jeff Koons who made this sculpture famous and the fragility of this sculpture was proven on Thursday when visitors to an art fair saw the blue porcelain sculpture fall to the ground and shatter into pieces.
The dog, who was 16 inches tall and 19 inches long, was perched on a transparent base at Art Wynwood, an art fair in downtown Miami where more than 50 American and foreign galleries are exhibiting work through Sunday.
“Before I realized they were picking up the Jeff Koons pieces with a broom,” artist and art collector Stephen Gamson said Saturday.
Mr Gamson said he was about to present the sculpture to his group when he saw a woman touch the sculpture with her finger and knock it off the pedestal.
The scene was like “a car crash on the freeway when people are watching and the traffic picks up and it becomes big business,” he added.
As an art collector, he saw an opportunity and asked the gallery owner if she wanted to sell the pieces. He is still waiting for an answer to his offer.