Image – Art Daily and Youtube / Screengrab Clickheart TV2.Via Youtube / @ClickHeart TV 2
This week, an unnamed woman unintentionally damaged a Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog” sculpture that was reputedly valued $42,000. The costly error happened Thursday night during a VIP preview event at Miami’s Art Wynwood festival, according to the New York Times. According to reports, the vivid blue porcelain object, which measured around 16 inches tall by 19 inches long, was on display at the Bel-Air Fine Art booth before it broke into pieces.
Stephen Gamson, an art collector and artist, was able to record the aftermath as a throng of onlookers watched the gleaming shards fall to the ground.
“Before I knew it, they were picking up the Jeff Koons pieces in a dustpan with a broom,” he said.
According to Gamson, just as he was going to draw attention to the artwork, he saw a woman tap it with her finger, knocking it off its pedestal and to the ground. He claimed that at first he believed the incident to be some sort of performance art but immediately realized it was an accident.
“[It was] kind of like a car accident on the highway,” he recalled, “where people start looking and then there’s traffic and then it becomes this big thing.”
Gamson claimed he made a purchase offer for the damaged sculpture but received no clear response. Boero acknowledged that the parts have been kept and are undergoing an insurance company review.