A woman accidentally smashed a balloon dog sculpture at an art gallery in Miami, US, the damage amounting to US$42,000 (C$57,000).
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, which was 16 inches tall and 19 inches long, sat on a transparent pedestal at Art Wynwood, an art fair in downtown Miami where more than 50 American and foreign galleries exhibit works up to ‘see you on Sunday.
“Before I realized it, 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, knocking it off the pedestal.
The scene was like “a car crash on the freeway, when people start watching and 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 intended to sell the broken pieces. He is still waiting for a response to his offer.