Caught short
'One of Marcel Duchamp's famous Fountain replicas was attacked while on display in Paris' Pompidou Centre in 2006. Septuagenarian performance artist Pierre Pinoncelli - who had been imprisoned previously for damaging and urinating into the same sculpture in 1993 - chipped the sculpture when he repeatedly hit it with a hammer.'
Nauseous pretension
'In 1996 a 22-year-old Toronto art student vomited over Piet Mondrian's Composition with Red and Blue which was hanging in New York's Museum of Modern Art. Despite gallery officials dismissing it as "an unfortunate incident" the student, Jubal Brown, said he intentionally defaced the painting. He later consumed red food colouring and gave a repeat performance all over a work by Raoul Dufy at the Art Gallery of Ontario.'
Smashing visit
'In 2006 a visitor to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge caused more than £500,000 worth of damage when he slipped down a stairway and smashed a set of 300-year-old Qing vases that had stood happily on a shelf for 40 years. Spokespeople for the museum said he was believed to have tripped on an untied shoelace but was unharmed by the accident.'
Drunken slash
'In 2007 drunks broke into the Musee D' Orsay in Paris and slashed Monet's 1874 Le pont d' Argenteuil. The four inch tear was completely repaired but the raucous vandals got away scot free.'
Rubbish art
'Damien Hirst's 2001 exhibition of Painting-By-Numbers was mistakenly sabotaged when the installation of empty beer-bottles, messy paint tins and overflowing ashtrays was cleared away by an enthusiastic cleaner. The work was later retrieved from the bin and Hirst said reportedly saw the funny side.'
Hirsts work was cleared away by a cleaner asuming this piece of 'modern art' was rubbish, rubbish made by Britain's richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List. Hirst can afford to see the funny side as it does not matter to him how his work is percieved, he will generate money from it regardless.
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