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A thunderous bang rang out in the white-walled halls of a Florida art fair! on Thursday night brought art lovers, collectors and artists to a standstill as shards of chrome-blue china sprayed into the air like confetti.
A woman had accidentally knocked over one of the sculptures on display. What was once one of artist Jeff Koons’ metallic balloon dogs was shattered beyond repair and broken into tiny pieces of various shapes and sizes on the floor of Miami’s Art Wynwood. Only the pointed tail of the sculpture remained intact.
But where horrified guests saw the loss of a $42,000 piece of art, Stephen Gamson, an artist and collector who witnessed the sculpture’s fall, saw a priceless piece of art history. He now hopes to add every fragment of the shattered “Balloon Dog (Blue)” — a 2021 work that stood just over a foot tall — to a personal collection of ephemera that includes Roy Lichtenstein’s ruler, Kenny Scharf’s refrigerator door, and “Multiple colors” belong to famous artists’ brushes,” Gamson told the Washington Post.
“To me, it’s like a kid collecting baseball cards,” Gamson said. “I’m really into it and when you’re that passionate about it, even broken or damaged pieces have value to you.”
And Gamson isn’t the only one interested in acquiring the broken pieces, according to Bel-Air Fine Art, the contemporary art gallery showcasing the sculpture. In a statement to The Post on Tuesday, the gallery’s district manager, Cédric Boero, said “some collectors have offered to buy the shards and we are still receiving offers as we speak.”
Gamson said he knew he saw something special as soon as he saw the work on a transparent base. “Oh look, there’s a Jeff Koons balloon dog,” Gamson told a friend. “And just as I was saying that, a woman walked near the stand and I saw the whole thing fall apart.”
The reaction was a mixture of confusion and surprise, he said. Dozens of people circled the metal remains with stunned looks. Others pulled out their phones to record the “simply outrageous” incident, Gamson said. A chorus of “Oh my God!” filled the air.
“I can’t believe anyone would upset that,” one man said of the episode in a clip shared by Gamson.
“See, that’s the new art installation over there… because it’s all art, isn’t it?” one woman joked.
“It’s the most popular stand at the whole show,” added another man.
As workers brushed the china pieces in dustpans, some wondered if they were in the middle of a Banksy-inspired prank or a taped banana hoax, Gamson said.
Banksy tried to destroy his art after it sold for $1.4 million. The shredded version just sold for $25.4 million.
The explanation was much simpler: Boero, who ran the gallery’s booth on Thursday, said the sculpture flew away after a woman “inadvertently gave a little kick” to its pedestal. Insurance will cover the damage, he added.
“Things like this happen,” said Steven Keller, a Florida-based museum and heritage safety consultant, “and often it’s because people aren’t careful enough and because they can be incredibly naive about art.”
Although the outright destruction of artworks is uncommon, Keller said instances causing lesser damage are not unheard of. In his 40-year collaboration with more than 950 institutions, Keller said he’s seen people rotate historical sculptures on their pedestals to take better selfies or rub their fingers up and down on priceless masterpieces. But even then, museums usually have systems in place to protect the pieces, while galleries and art fairs typically don’t.
“You can put these pieces in a display case, that would be a solution,” Keller said. “But if something is for sale, they risk it because they don’t want to belittle its spectacular appearance in front of someone who might buy it.”
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Art Wynwood declined to comment on the incident. A press release said the event featured pieces from 50 international galleries, including Bel-Air Fine Art, which still has listings for a selection of Koons’ balloon creations, including a monkey, a dog and a swan.
But even if he won’t own a (whole) balloon dog, Gamson still enjoys the added layers of meaning the sculpture’s fall brought. Perhaps, he said, it would even inspire his own pop art-style pieces.
“Perhaps the fact that we can still appreciate that [the sculpture] means that something good comes out of every bad situation,” said Gamson. “Or maybe the crazy attention this whole thing is getting means people in our country are paying more attention to art, which can really enrich someone’s life, you know?”
A rabbit sculpture by Jeff Koons has just sold for $91.1 million – another sign that the art world is detached from reality
Koons, who set a record for the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction in 2019, first conceived balloons as art for his 1994 series Celebration. Exhibited in tones of magenta, blue, red, orange, and yellow, the Blowup -animals are “eternally optimistic” and representative of humanity, Koons said in 2014. But they’ve been damaged before — and found new life, too.
After another balloon dog was crushed in 2008, it became an exhibit at the Salvage Art Institute traveling museum, which has an inventory of damaged artwork. When The Post asked the artist in 2013 if broken art can still be perfect, Koons said: “You can find a hierarchy of the meaning of different things, but not of value, of being. Everything is perfect for what it is.”
Now the world has one less balloon dog. Boero said the recently crashed one, which was part of a series of 799s, is sitting in a box awaiting verification from an insurance company, which will be passed on to its next owner.