They actually try and say in this article that as a 12 year old he may not have realized the raminfications of his actions. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!!? There's not a chance a 12 year old doesn't know that he can't stick gum on a painting in a museum!!!!! He should have to do community service in that museum until he's old enough to vote!
I'm SO SICK and tired of people making excuses for poorly behaved children. ********************************************
Boy, 12, Sticks Gum on $1.5M Painting
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
(02-28) 16:40 PST DETROIT (AP) --
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.
Posted by Kissymatina (Member # 2028) on :
1.5 million...gonna take him a long time to pay that off. If at 12 he didn't have enough respect or know better than to not damage someone else's property, his parents should've been castrated before he was conceived.
At this point, I'd say he owes 1.5 million to the museum.
Posted by jack wills (Member # 521) on :
It was an ugly painting! So what's to be Pi$$ed about?
Crazyjack
Posted by David Wright (Member # 111) on :
They just showed the story on the local news. The kid couldn't hurt that piece of crap anyways. A little goof off or windex ought to fix that just fine.
Apparently they only paid a few thousand dollars many years ago for the "painting" and now is estimated over a million bucks.
I just read a story about some recent discoveries of some faked Jackson Pollack concoctions. How can you tell they're fake?
Anyways, the kid should have to be reprimanded appropriately for doing this, no matter what mine or anyone's opinion is of the subject. That's another topic as to why some kid would think he could do this.
Posted by Patrick Whatley (Member # 2008) on :
When: March 1981. Where: A museum I'm not naming in public. Event: 6th Grade Field Trip.
A redhead with pig tails named (and I'm not making this up) Cherry Redd dared me to touch a painting to see if it was dry. . . . . . It wasn't.
That painting, with a very faint fingerprint in the lower left corner became part of the permanent collection at the museum. So yes, something I've done is hanging in a museum.
Posted by Russ McMullin (Member # 5617) on :
LOL Pat!!!
Posted by Kelly Thorson (Member # 2958) on :
"A red head with pigtails named Cherry Redd" I'd say the name alone pretty much excuses anything you did to impress her.
And yes, Kimberly, any kid 12 years old should be held responsible. I'd be willing to bet that this wasn't likely his first smart alec move and likely will not be his last. Hopefully the next one won't involve injury to someone.
Posted by whitey2 (Member # 1265) on :
I went to the art gallery last weekend and was almost gang tackled by security guards because I was pointing about 6 inches away from the painting, they said I was too close...lucky I didn't slip and touch it I would be doing life..lol
Posted by William Holohan (Member # 2514) on :
Cherry Redd???Almost as bad as the daughter of heartless parents who named my 1950's classmate Opheilia Pratt. Some peoples kids? Some kids parents!
Posted by bruce ward (Member # 1289) on :
im sure that this value of 1.5 million was way overvalued for the crap ive seen hanging in museums. if something is absolutely worth that much do you think it would be out so things like this can happen?
that "crap" should be behind bars and glass Posted by Jill Marie Welsh (Member # 1912) on :
I'm with Irish....some people's parents! Altho at 12 the kid is responsible. He should have been taught from a young age to respect things. And others! Love....Jill
Posted by Tony Vickio (Member # 2265) on :
I'm with Bruce! Have you seen some of this "junk" that some idiot calls "ART"? If it was worth 1.5 million before............it's worth 2 million now! The gum probobly helped the looks!
Posted by Judy Pate (Member # 237) on :
Yes I agree a 12 year old should have been taught to respect things. It is however an ugly abstract painting. Take a look!
But that is no excuse for what he did!
Judy
Posted by William Holohan (Member # 2514) on :
Thanks Judy...Now I can see how the lad may have been confused....Good chance he ia the son of a sign man/woman. He probably thought..."Gee, someone slapped his waste vinyl up there, guess I can get rid of my gum here too."
[ March 01, 2006, 09:15 AM: Message edited by: William Holohan ]
Posted by Wayne Webb (Member # 1124) on :
That is worth 1.5 million? That looks like chimpanzee art. Wait...the price is sure to go up then.
A kid can be taught respect for others' things by the ripe old age of 3....certainly he can understand at 12.
Posted by Laura Butler (Member # 1830) on :
I heard about it on the TV last night and immediately wondered if RAPID REMOVER would take off the stain.
Posted by Ricky Jackson (Member # 5082) on :
Looks like an infrared satellite image of Lake Moose caca in Ontario. You've got to be kidding me, $1.5 M for that crap????? There is not a single person on this board that couldn't do better. I've seen better "art" from cleaning out brushes. Personally I think the kid had good taste in art and he was only using his "freedom of expression". I think it's perfectly ok to destroy public or private property as long as you are exercising your freedom of expression. (sarcasm added)
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
This is pretty comical really.
No way in hell a painting valued at 1.5 Million is going to be hanging in a museum. No way, no how. Items of that sort of value are never on display unless it's under glass! Otherwise the display piece is actually a reproduction of the real one locked away in a vault.
This story is a big to-do about absolutely nothing because the museum obviously cannot tell the media it's a VersaCamm reproduction print worth about $30.
Either that, or this museum is full of morons.
Posted by Kimberly Zanetti (Member # 2546) on :
It doesn't matter if it was a comic strip hanging on the wall. The point of the whole thing is that a child should be raised to know the difference between right and wrong. Period.
It's a matter of common sense that you don't stick gum anywhere except in your mouth or a trashcan. Those are your two options.
They should make that kid clean up gum off of sidewalks for a month and see when the next time he sticks gum on something.
Posted by Tony Vickio (Member # 2265) on :
Kimberly, well said! Can you imagine being a school teacher in todays society!!!!! I'd be jailed for homicide!
Posted by jack wills (Member # 521) on :
I'm with ya on the disipline thing Kim, but the painting should be disiplined too! I love art and do a lot of it and there are many more great artists who can't get any where near that kind of recognition. It's about patrons and a$$ kissing to see that type of stuff priced so high.
CrazyJack
Posted by Rovelle W. Gratz (Member # 4404) on :
On an abstract painting, nobody would have noticed the stain if someone didn't bring it to everyones attention.
Posted by Jon Butterworth (Member # 227) on :
Mike is right about security!
Has anyone here been to see the "Mona Lisa" in Paris? You need binoculars because you can't get within 20 feet of it and it can't be bigger than 2' x 1' .... now there's value per square inch!
As for kids touching "Art" ... I was painting a window one day in the mall when a darling "young child" asked if it was wet and proceeded to touch it. Not just her finger, but whole hand! Then proceeded to wipe the white paint down her pretty new blue dress! The look on her mother's face was priceless!
Posted by Ricky Jackson (Member # 5082) on :
LOL, Rove is right too!! I mean... who's gonna notice?
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
I thought that was a map of Gondwanaland before continental drift.
Posted by Wayne Webb (Member # 1124) on :
quote:Originally posted by David Harding: I thought that was a map of Gondwanaland before continental drift.
Good one! Posted by Bill Lynch (Member # 3815) on :
"No way in hell a painting valued at 1.5 Million is going to be hanging in a museum" They're hanging in many musuems. The Yale gallery here has a great Van Gogh,(The poolroom) and I can assure you, it's the real one and it's worth way more than 1.5mil. There are no ropes or anything to keep you back. And thta's just one of many like it. And I agree the point is not the artwork but the lack of respect for another's property. If you were allowed to stick gum on something just because you didn't like it there's a ton of prints by Thomas Kincade that people love that I'd just as soon cover with bazooka bubble gum.Hey what about signs I don't like? Better start chewing I've got a lot of work ahead of me.
Posted by Ray Rheaume (Member # 3794) on :
quote: The museum's conservation department is researching the chemicals in the gum to decide which solvent to use to clean it.
Why, gum turpentine....of course.
If the same kid whips a quarter at a 1/4 panel of a car and leaves a "quarter sized" mark on it, does he owe the owner for half of the repair, or 1/8th of it? I need sleep... Rapid
Posted by Bruce Bowers (Member # 892) on :
Gum turpentine... LOL!!!!
Posted by Harry Ellis (Member # 6353) on :
Hey maybe the kid is a natural born art critic.
Somehow the Mel Brooks movie "History of the World" comes to mind. In the caveman chapter...."along with the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth of the critic" LOL!
Maybe it was the kid's way of giving that ugly painting the ole Bronx cheer ?
I guess it could've been worse had it been hung a few feet lower on the wall........
Posted by Sheila Ferrell (Member # 3741) on :
I certainly would'a made mine aware of the 'ramifications' . . . I woulda 'made it real' to her anyway . . .
Hopefully, enough discipline and respect taught at home will prevent a kid from acting upon most of their insane ideas . . .
On the other hand, I see parents treating their children in the most cruel ways . . . for example, I saw a mother making a little toddler-(could not've been more than 3 years old) follow her on his little legs across the parking lot into the grocery store, basically ignoring him so much I wondered whose baby it was and almost immediately went to pick him up, when I looked around and saw this woman stopping occasionally to scream at him to 'bring his *** on'.
I saw her repeat this same behavior in the grocery store . . . then pick him up and spank him because he was'nt coming along fast enough.
I wondered, if she treats that baby that way in public, what in god's name does she do to him at home!. . . I always feel I should have called the law on her . . .
Anyway, we have parents abusing kids any number of ways, then we wonder why some children act like demons . . . I think more often the parents need some intense lessons, education and therapy . . .
Posted by Russ McMullin (Member # 5617) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kimberly Zanetti: They should make that kid clean up gum off of sidewalks for a month and see when the next time he sticks gum on something.
I think that would be letting him off easy Kimberly.
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