Willendorf

Like Saben’s handprints in the concrete patio outside the studio, Hsiao’s own wildly creative imprint is clear in the whimsical vessels that line the shelves of the former two-car garage: from long-beaked toucan pitchers and owl juicers to Japanese daruma wishing dolls and Venus of Willendorf lady tiki cups.

“It was moving to me,” Koons said on a phone call from Hydra, Greece, “because I always thought of the Balloon Dog as kind of a ritualistic work, something that could have a mythic quality to it, a little bit like a Trojan horse or Venus of Willendorf, where there would be some form of tribal community.”

Magenta globs of glass held up by wooden legs; electric-blue ceramic vessels shaped like the thighs of the Venus of Willendorf; folds of white glass creased like skin: The sculptures by Seattle artist Anna Mlasowsky are somewhat humanoid but entirely alien.

Jaci Oseguera and Debra Willendorf, however, would beg to differ.

The offending artworks include the Venus of Willendorf, a 25,000-year-old limestone figurine of a woman.