Wednesday, March 01, 2006
the spirit of the age is a 12 year old in detroit
I am always looking for people who embody the zeitgeist. Perhaps it is this young boy wandering through the Detroit Institute Art who stuck a piece of gum onto an extravagently overpriced painting.
The museum feels confident that the painting will be restored. I am captured by the image of a little boy walking through a museum and sticking a piece of gum to a piece of valuable art. Did he know he was defacing, as CNN reported, "a priceless painting worth $1.5 million"?
A 12-year-old visitor to the Detroit Institute of Arts stuck a wad of gum to a $1.5 million painting, leaving a stain the size of a quarter, officials say.
The boy was part of a school group from Holly that visited the museum on Friday, officials say. They say he took a piece of Wrigley's Extra Polar Ice gum out of his mouth and stuck it on Helen Frankenthaler's "The Bay," an abstract painting from 1963.
The museum acquired the work in 1965 and says it is worth about $1.5 million.
The museum feels confident that the painting will be restored. I am captured by the image of a little boy walking through a museum and sticking a piece of gum to a piece of valuable art. Did he know he was defacing, as CNN reported, "a priceless painting worth $1.5 million"?
