Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog Sculpture just sold for a whopping $58,4 million at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale and thus set a world record for the most expensive piece of art by a living artist sold at auction. Estimated at $35 – $55 million, his Balloon Dog (Orange) beat his $33.6 Million “Tulips” Sculputure at Wynn Las Vegas.
This 12 feet high “monumental work” (or oversized children’s toy) is one of five metallic dog pieces crafted by Koons (other four are yellow, blue, magenta and red), owned by financier art collectors Steven A. Cohen, Eli Broad (whose “Balloon Dog (Blue)” is on display at LACMA), Francois Pinault and Dakis Joannou.
Speaking about the artwork, Koons told Christie’s: “When I made ‘Balloon Dog’, I wanted to make a piece that reflected the joy of celebrating a birthday or a party. The Balloon Dog is materialism and monumentality. In many ways it is like the Trojan horse.”
The sculpture was sold last night at Christie’s in New York alongside Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud”, which was auctioned for a record $142 million.
