Article: Christopher Michaud from Reuters
Image: Reuters

Anthony Grant, Sotheby's international senior contemporary art specialist, called the price "the most important record of the last two weeks of sales" at Sotheby's and rival Christie's.

The sale also smashed the $11.8 million record for a Koons set only a day before when "Diamond (Blue)" a 2.1metre wide stainless steel sculpture of a diamond was bought by Gagosian at a Christie's auction, although the price fell short of expectations.

By comparison, "Hanging Heart," a 2.7metre stainless steel magenta heart hanging from a stainless steel gold bow from Koons' "Celebration" series, drew competitive and spirited bidding.

Koons, 52, a one-time Wall Street commodities broker, burst on the art scene in the 1980s aided by an image consultant. He added to his fame with his marriage and contentious split from Italian porn star Ilona Staller, known as "La Cicciolina," in the 1990s.

In a 1986 interview with the Journal of Contemporary Art, Koons said his art was based in media and advertising. "The media defines reality," he said.

New York magazine recently included Koons on its list of 20 living artists who "still matter," backhandedly lauding him as "empty like a fox" and "the Ronald Reagan of sculpture," while ArtReview magazine last year listed Koons as the 10th-most powerful figure in the contemporary art world.

Others have been far less admiring. A New York Times critic once damned Koons as the personification of "the sort of self-promoting hype and sensationalism that characterised the worst of the 1980s." The critic blasted his output as "artificial," "cheap" and "unabashedly cynical."

Even Sotheby's writes in its sale catalogue for "Hanging Heart," "Koons' work has consistently and impossibly surpassed accepted codes of conduct and execution as set by the traditions of art history."