The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra has received a balloon sculpture that could be the most expensive piece ever gifted to the national collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sculpture by American artist Jeff Koons \u2014 Balloon Venus Dolni Vestonice (Yellow), 2013\u201317 \u2014 is a nearly three-metre-tall polished stainless steel statue.<\/p>\n
It is inspired by a small artefact made of mammoth ivory from about 45,000 years ago that depicts fertility and the human body.<\/p>\n
What’s it worth?<\/p>\n
NGA director Nick Mitzevich did not want to put a price on the piece when asked if it could be worth about $20 million.<\/p>\n
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NGA director Nick Mitzevich says the piece is a significant acquisition for the gallery. (ABC News: James Tugwell)<\/p>\n
“The value is really set by the market, and as a gift, we don’t really comment on the price,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But Jeff Koons’s artworks sell up to that price and beyond \u2026 He is the highest selling living artist in the world today.<\/p>\n
“He makes these extraordinary objects that seduce us in, that pull us in, and it asks us to look a bit closer.”<\/p>\n
Dr Mitzevich said he believed its true value was in its meaning.<\/p>\n
“The work, for me, references art history. It references a fertility object from about 45,000 years ago, and I love that he is always thinking about art history,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And he gives it a 21st-century approach by turning a fertility object, a Venus, into a balloon sculpture. So, he collides history and the present.<\/p>\n