Jeff Koons, one of the most expensive (and contentious) living artists of our time, is down a dog. Last week, one of the artist’s famous Balloon Dog sculptures was being displayed as part of Art Wynwood, a contemporary art fair in Miami, when one curious attendee decided to get a closer look at the piece and find out what it was really made of. She then reportedly “tapped” the $42,000 sculpture which caused it to fall and shatter into hundreds of pieces.

The sculpture – which was blue, around 16 inches tall and 19 inches long – was being displayed on a transparent plinth in the middle of the room. Following the crash, the other VIP attendees rushed around the smashed artwork, with some of them believing it to be part of a staged performance piece. Stephen Gamson, a Wynwood-based artist and art collector, saw the sculpture fall and recorded the aftermath. He told the Miami Herald that he assumed the woman tapped the sculpture because she was curious if it was a real balloon and also that he had tried to purchase some of the broken pieces. “To me, it’s the story. It makes the art even more interesting.”

In a statement to CNN, however, Cédric Boero, the district manager of the gallery Bel-Air Fine Art which was displaying the balloon dog at its booth, disputed the cause of the fall. “The collector never intended to break the sculpture, in fact she never touched it with her hands,” he said. “It was the opening cocktail, lots of people were on our booth, she gave unintentionally a little kick in the pedestal, which was enough to cause the sculpture to fall down.” He also confirmed the artwork was covered by insurance.

A total of 799 editions of the blue balloon dog sculpture were made, so it was not one-of-a-kind. The balloon dogs are a running motif throughout Koons’ work, each made from mirror-polished stainless steel and finished with a translucent coating. In 2013, a much larger sculpture, “Balloon Dog (Orange)”, was sold at auction for $58.4 million. In 2019, a similar artwork, this time a balloon bunny wielding a carrot like a knife, sold for $91.1 million, becoming the most expensive artwork sold by a living artist.

While many critics have dismissed Koons’ work as vacuous, his Celebration collection which features the balloon dog sculptures as well as other animals and party hats, holds a deep personal pain at its centre. The collection was created in the wake of Koons’ divorce from Staller, the mother of his son, Ludwig, in 1994 and he used the art as an outlet for his grief.  

Massimiliano Gioni, curator of Koons’ exhibition in Qatar, said last year that Koons described Balloon Dog as a “Trojan horse. It holds a secret, but it’s up to you to figure out what that is”. Because the balloon is filled with air inside, Koons has said of the work, the attention is focused on its outside, and in particular on the viewers. “The inflatables’ exteriors are also totally reflective, and this constantly reminds the viewers of their existence,” he writes in the exhibition’s catalogue. “To me, Celebration is about the viewers – what their own dreams and memories are. It’s about using the public as a readymade.”