12 Year Old Art Critic? Or Vandal?

A 12 year old kid defaces a work of art, valued at 1.5 million dollars with a 15 cent piece of chewing gum. When I first read this, I was initially angry that such a child would be so careless and negligent. But when i saw the painting, i realized that he may have been making a statement about the art itself.

From the AP here:

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.

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’m sorry, but this painting is not worth 1.5 million dollars. And if it was defaced, how would anyone really know? I think the child was only showing his criticism of the work.