"A New York woman accidentally lost her balance while attending an art-education class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and fell into a Pablo Picasso masterpiece. She reportedly was uninjured, but her tumble tore a 15-centimetre vertical gash in The Actor.
The museum did not elaborate on why the unidentified woman fell. But it asserted that the tear didn’t affect “the focal point of the composition” and it indicated that it should be repaired before the picture is included in a major Picasso retrospective at the museum in April."
Despite the strict security that every top museum I've ever been to employs ("Ma'm STEP AWAY from the art or we shoot to kill") it seems there are little oopsies with famous and irreplaceable works of art.
Picasso Is a Target?
"In 2006, casino mogul Steve Wynn was showing off his famous Picasso painting, "Le Rêve," to friends when he accidentally poked a hole in the painting with his elbow. It was a costly mistake: He was just about to sell the piece to art collector Steven Cohen for $139 million. The 6-inch rip in the canvas was eventually repaired, but the sale was called off." Can you imagine the look on his face? [It's just a little wear and tear Mister Cohen - how about we knock off ten percent of the price and call it all good?]
Kids Say the Darndest Things
"At the Tate Britain in London, a child vomited on Carl Andre's "Venus Forge" sculpture in 2007. The Minimalist's sculpture is a series of steel and copper tiles placed on the ground. In 2008, one of Mr. Andre's copper-tile floor sculptures sold for $2.6 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York." [Everyone is a critic and I wonder if the vomit increased the value of the piece.]
Trashy Art
"In October 2001, staff at a chic gallery in London were forced to go dumpster-diving after a janitor accidentally swept up an installation by prominent British artist Damien Hirst. Called Untitled, the piece was a tableau consisting of half-full coffee cups, ashtrays with cigarette butts, empty beer bottles, candy wrappers and an easel." [Maybe if Hirst had titled the piece? I wonder if the janitor got a pay raise for adding a little dumpster ambience to the piece.]
Bleeding Art
"Marc Quinn calls it an “urban myth,” but others insist that it’s true. Reportedly a self-portrait bust that Quinn made from nine frozen pints of his own blood melted in the freezer of legendary London art collector Charles Saatchi after decorators working on his kitchen pulled the plug. Quinn’s blood busts currently sell for $1-million each and it takes him at least one year to accumulate the necessary blood."
[That would suck and not in a friendly vampire way either. Imagine discovering that a year's worth of blood, sweat and well, blood - going down the drain. At least he got to keep his cool mill.]
So my week kinda sucked - but seriously, not as bad as the people who accidentally destroyed million dollar works of art. See - bright shiny spot in every cloud.
REF: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/notable-gaffes-involving-art-and-artifacts/article1445644/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029610052908770.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel
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