Boy, 12, Sticks Gum on $1.5M Painting

[Vanessa]

This kind of behavior I blame on the parents:

DETROIT - 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 gum stuck to the painting's lower left corner and did not adhere to the fiber of the canvas, officials told the Detroit Free Press. But it left a chemical residue about the size of a quarter, said Becky Hart, assistant curator of contemporary art.

The museum's conservation department is researching the chemicals in the gum to decide which solvent to use to clean it. The museum hopes to make the repair in two weeks and will keep "The Bay" on display in the meantime, she said.

"Our expectation is that the painting is going to be fine," Hart said.

Holly Academy director Julie Kildee said the boy had been suspended from the charter school and says his parents also have disciplined him.

"Even though we give very strict guidelines on proper behavior and we hold students to high standards, he is only 12 and I don't think he understood the ramifications of what he did before it happened, but he certainly understands the severity of it now," said Kildee.

I don't know about you, but when I was 12 I sure as heck knew what was inappropriate behavior.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Good God. Hopefully the child has to pay for the cleaning and restoration.

bk

 

[mysterygal]

how awful! definetely the parents fault...1. if you know your kids have destructive tendencies they shouldn't be a mile around something like that and 2. being in a place that has that kind of art work with a child...you gotta be darn sure your watching that little rugrat close (comes from experience....3 kids myself)

 

[magneto]

This kind of behavior I blame on the parents:

I don't know about you, but when I was 12 I sure as heck knew what was inappropriate behavior.

Yep! The scary thing is that often the parents are where the kids learn their slovenly and disrespectful behavior! "Let's pack little Junior off to a 'Charter School' and expect the teachers to bang manners and morality into him as we (the parents) are far too busy to do such menial tasks ourselves!" Not that I have anything against teachers trying to impart some manners and morality into their charges (quite the opposite) but from being around teachers I know that any behavior from them with the slightest hint of "imposing values" on the precious moppets is cause for calling out the how-dare-you-oppress-my-child PC brigade when if teachers actually try to do anything along those lines.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

OMG!!!

I'm horrified over here! If I'm ever lucky enough to have a work of mine hung in a museum,...*sigh*,.....I don't even wanna think about it.

 

[jake_fink]

I blame Wrigleys. People don't ruin paintings, gum ruins paintings.

 

[Sefton]

When reached for comment the child told reporters "Look, its not as if It was a Rembrandt...It's modern art...just more so....



The used gum is now on display in the child's first sold-out exhibition entitled "Used Wrigley's ascending a staircase" at the Guggenheim.

 

[ITG]

"Even though we give very strict guidelines on proper behavior and we hold students to high standards, he is only 12 and I don't think he understood the ramifications of what he did before it happened, but he certainly understands the severity of it now," said Kildee.

Oh gracious, things like this bug the bi-geebers out of me. That kid knew what he was doing. I teach 12 year olds and they are capable of all sorts of mischief and they know full and well what they are doing. This kid is no different. It's a complete lack of respect and I think he deserves to have every one of his classmates chew up a piece of gum and stick it in his hair.

 

[scotrace]

...and I think he deserves to have every one of his classmates chew up a piece of gum and stick it in his hair.

Hear Hear!
Whatever happened to just jamming the stuff under a desk?

 

[jake_fink]

The kid's got nothing on Jubal Brown

From "Art Crime":

May 1997

Jubal Brown, a 22 year old student from Ontario College of Art and Design vommited in red over Raoul Duffy's Harbour at le Havre in the Art Gallery of Ontario infront of an invited audience of roughly 12 onlookers

'It was just so boring it needed some color.'1 Brown was quoted by the New York Times as saying in relation to the action which was the beginning of what he envisaged to be a tryptich "work of art". Following this he vomitted blue on a Mondrian. The planned vommiting of yellow over another well known work has not yet eventuated.

"Mr. Brown's MO is to gorge himself with colored foods such as Jell-O and cake frosting and then induce vomiting, spraying his target."2 "He does not stick his finger down his throat. Rather, he is stirred by an emotive response to the work of art."3

Originally the gallery thought the act was an accident until media attention surrounding his second attack forced them to realise it was infact purposefull and as such they considered taking legal action against him, however none was mounted.

 

[Matt Deckard]

I feel an Oompa loompa song coming on.

You now exactly who's to blame
The mother and the father.
If you're not spoiled then you will go far.

Given good manners you will go far,
You will live in happiness too,
like the oompa loompa doompity doo.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I feel an Oompa loompa song coming on.



You now exactly who's to blame
The mother and the father.
If you're not spoiled then you will go far.

Given good manners you will go far,
You will live in happiness too,
like the oompa loompa doompity doo.

And you thus win the 'best post of the day' Prize.(TM)

 

[ITG]

Hear Hear!
Whatever happened to just jamming the stuff under a desk?

They stick it in computers nowadays too.

Matt, your pic just made me think this: I wonder if any of the Oompa Loompas played Ewoks in ROTJ.

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

I think what really happened is that the boy simply thought that "art" was a splotch of blue paint a workman had clumsily spilled on the wall and thus the addition of the gum was of no more consequence than sticking a wad of gum on some graffiti in an alleyway.

Of course, the real question is who would pay $1.5 million for that thing. But as Gordon Gekko says, "A fool and his money are lucky to get together in the first place..."

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Does this mean that the gum is now worth a portion of that $1.5 million?


Could it be possible that the work of art looks better with the stain on it?

 

[MudInYerEye]

I love that kid!

Ah...memory lane. Most of greatest childhood experiences involved some kind of defacement or vandalism. The devil made him do it.
I'd vote for whatever office he runs for.