A priceless one-of-a-kind art installation has been damaged after a partygoer accidentally fell on it during cocktails at one of Australia’s most prestigious museums.
The piece – the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art’s biggest drawcard when it opened – is titled Hub and was part of a touring installation of works by acclaimed South Korean artist Do Ho Suh.
But an after-work private function attended by Bloomberg employees ended in disaster when an enthusiastic reveller knocked into the fabric and metal structure – a series of intricately designed doorways – and pulled down two of the doors.
‘I was there with … a guest and witnessed it. It was the main multicoloured fabric hub sculpture,’ one tipster told The Aussie Corporate.
‘(It) appeared to detach two “doors”. Definitely going hard for a Monday night!’
Hub by Do Ho Suh (pictured) on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney is understood to have been damaged after a partygoer fell on it during a work function
The artwork features life-size recreations of entrances to homes and apartment buildings where Suh has lived in cities like New York, London and Berlin in a connected corridor
Another witness reported that ‘someone drunkenly fell on and destroyed part of an exhibit’.
The Suh exhibition was the first time the acclaimed South Korean artist has held a solo exhibition in the Southern Hemisphere.
While the value of the damaged piece is unclear, having never been offered for auction, one of his pieces – titled Some/One – sold for more than USD$814,000 in 2009, equivalent to AUD$1.2million.
His Hub exhibition is made up of a series full-scale entrances to a home or apartment building Suh has lived in at different locations across the world, linked in one interconnected corridor that can be walked through.
It is created from translucent green, red, purple, pink, and orange fabric draped over a stainless steel frame – with fine details like power sockets, light switches, door handles, and hinges meticulously recreated.
Th exhibition also features other works from the artist spanning three decades including Metal Jacket, representing his experience of conscription in South Korea’s army, and Staircase-III, which is on loan from the Tate Collection in the UK.
It is a one-to-one scale recreation of the narrow staircase that connected Suh’s New York apartment, where he lived for twenty years, to his landlord’s home – constructed in red fabric and suspended, floating down from the ceiling.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Museum of Contemporary Art and Bloomberg for comment.
Another of the acclaimed artist’s works Staircase-III (pictured) is also on display in Sydney on loan from the Tate Collection
Do Ho Suh (pictured), in his 60s, is from South Korea and has exhibited work across the world with solo shows at the Boston Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian in Washington DC
Suh’s exhibition ran from November 4, 2022 until Monday at the MCA in Sydney (pictured)
It echoes an incident earlier this month when a collector visiting a contemporary art fair in the United States accidentally toppled over a small glass sculpture by renowned artist Jeff Koons, shattering it to pieces.
The shiny blue sculpture, one of Koons’ famous ‘balloon dog’ series, was valued at US$42,000.
The mishap occurred during a VIP preview at Art Wynwood in Miami, and some collectors thought it was performance art or a staged stunt.
The sculpture sat alone on an acrylic base emblazoned with Koons’s surname.
‘I saw this woman was there, and she was tapping (the sculpture), and then the thing fell over and shattered into thousands of pieces,’ artist Stephen Gamson told a Fox News affiliate in Miami.
Gamson told reporters he thought the woman tapped on the artwork to see if it was a real balloon.
A $42,000 limited edition blue porcelain balloon dog sculpture by world-famous artist Jeff Koons has been smashed by an art collector in downtown Miami
Koon’s 2004 Balloon Dog, which sold for $58.4million, is one of the many works of his which has attracted criticism
A bystander took a video as gallery employees swept up the glass shards.
‘I can’t believe somebody would knock that over,’ a voice is heard to say on the video.
Benedicte Caluch, an art advisor with Bel-Air Fine Art, which sponsored the Koons piece, told the Miami Herald that the woman did not mean to break the piece and that insurance would cover the damage.
Koons, who was not present, is an American painter and sculptor who draws inspiration from everyday objects, including balloon animals. His works challenge notions of what is fine art, even as they have auctioned for as high as $91 million.
His balloon dog sculptures vary in size, from less than a foot (30 centimeters) in height to over 10-feet (three-meters) tall, and come in vivid colors.
