Guest accidentally breaks BRL 200,000 sculpture at exclusive event

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Jeff Koons’ piece was exhibited at an art fair opening event. The object was part of a limited series that went from 799 to 788 pieces STEPHEN GAMSON via BBC “Please do not touch the works”. From time to time, we are reminded why these notices are still required in galleries around the world. Visitors to an exclusive event in Miami were horrified on Thursday night (16) when a collector accidentally dropped a $42,000 sculpture by American pop artist Jeff Koons to the floor. The statue was one of Koons’ Dog Balloons, sculptures in the shape of dogs made from balloons. The piece broke into small shards and had to be swept up by gallery staff. The accident happened during the opening night of Art Wynwood, an annual contemporary art fair held in Miami, Florida. The event was exclusive to a few important guests. Artist Stephen Gamson, who was at the event, told the local newspaper Miami Herald that he was admiring the sculpture when an “older lady” touched it, knocking the piece off its pedestal. At first he wondered if it was part of a performance (Banksy, perhaps?), but he soon realized it had been an accident. “When the piece fell to the ground, it was like a car accident that attracts a large crowd of onlookers on the road,” Gamson told the paper. Jeff Koons (left) talks to a fan at an event in 2021, with one of his blue statues from the Balloon Dog series in the background Getty Images via BBC ‘I wish it was gone’ Luckily for the woman, the piece was insured, according to Bénédicte Caluch, art consultant for the Bel-Air Fine Art gallery, which sold the sculpture. “It was an event,” Caluch told the Miami Herald. “Everyone came to see what happened.” She said the woman who caused the damage, who was not identified, was an art collector. “Everything stopped for 15 minutes,” Cédric Boero, who also works for the gallery, told The New York Times. He said a colleague spoke to the woman, who said she was “really, really sorry” and “just wanted to get away.” The sculpture was part of a limited edition that has now shrunk from 799 to 798 pieces. “That’s good for collectors,” Boero told the newspaper, laughing. Despite being shattered to pieces, there is still interest in buying the destroyed work. Gamson offered to buy it on the spot because, as he said on his Instagram account, the piece now “has a really cool story.” Artist Jeff Koons, 68, had no comment on the incident. His series of Balloon Dog sculptures are among the best known in contemporary art, and pieces have sold for tens of millions of dollars. Some of the works are huge – 3 meters high – but the piece that broke was just a puppy, 40 cm high. The works have already been in galleries around the world and became even more famous when rapper Jay-Z worked directly with Koons to create a 12-meter-high inflatable Balloon Dog to decorate the stage of his concerts. In 2019, Koons made history when his Rabbit sculpture sold at auction for more than $91 million (Rs 470 million) – the highest price reached for a work by a living artist. New York retrospective of Jeff Koons’ work

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