“Art fabricator Carlson & Co., which gained fame by producing Jeff Koons’s stainless-steel “Balloon Dog,” is closing, yet another casualty of the slumping contemporary-art market. Company founder Peter Carlson said it will be filing something “akin” to bankruptcy.

“The economic climate contributed very much to the condition we find ourselves in,” Carlson said in a phone interview. He declined to provide details on the company’s financial performance.

Carlson fired the entire workforce of 95 employees last week in anticipation of the closing.“We had expectations that we would be able to work a solution to this problem, and ultimately we weren’t able to,” Carlson said.

The company, based in San Fernando, California, was founded in 1971. It became one of the best-known resources for artists seeking to produce complicated, large-scale and frequently costly artworks.“Many artists trying to make work that involves high-tech and precise execution would go to Carlson and they could often figure things out that no one else could,” said New York art adviser Allan Schwartzman. The firm fabricated some of the most technically challenging artworks created during the six-year rise of contemporary art prices which began in 2002.” SOURCE: Lindsay Pollock, “Koons ‘Dog’ Fabricator Carlson Shuts as Recession Hits Big Art,” Bloomberg.