This is what insurance is for; but the widespread belief that this is what insurance is for has largely resulted in insurers refusing to cover things if you haven’t either made a solid attempt to gouge it out of the other party or authorized them to try.
If the insurer isn’t totally screwing you they will eventually pay out if they can’t force someone else to; but if a potentially at-fault party exists they’ll generally give them a try.
all I’m going to say is that I’m grateful, for the sake of my poor mother, that cctvs weren’t so ubiquitous in the 80s
You could use walls erected out of chain-link fencing (which are totally not cages, by the way).
While I don’t know anybody involved in the incident or have any knowledge about it beyond the post we just read, I have to put in my theoretical two cents about an out-of-control kid and/or lax parenting.
A kid at a wedding (one presumes) and then at a wedding reception? All dressed up, told to be quiet for hours? I’d be climbing a statue, too.
Parents with an active kid who have just sat on him for however long the service lasted, and are now facing a wedding reception with a kid ready to bust? “Hey honey, let’s just congratulate Emma and Sandy and then get out of here.” (Crash in background.)
And the kid – and his parents – probably didn’t even get any cake.
It’s not even code - he’s straight-out saying, “I ain’t gonna fix it, so pay me.” But he isn’t going to fix it in part because he doesn’t want to (because he’d never actually get that price if he sold it, and it’s a waste of time for something that’s already taken too much), so…
I’m sure he gave a value for insurance purposes before it was put in there for display. In that context, it’s actually not unreasonable, even if no buyer would pay that much for it.
That’s what I’m saying. I very much like the chances of parents’ umbrella policy prevailing.
The first lesson of bringing art to Burning Man is that it has to be strong enough to support people trying to climb on it.
It is rather incredible to me how many museums with actually priceless works of art exposed to the public host open bar parties.
When I was a kid it was always understood that if I broke something in a store, my parents bought it. But I have a sense that the world is becoming more Disneyfied, becoming a place where it is expected that the public landscape has been sanitized and made safe.
A part of having free range kids is teaching them that there are real dangers that they have to be aware of. I am sure this kid learned a good lesson. Yet I wonder if the lesson could have been learned earlier in a less costly way if his everyday world wasn’t so sanitized.
I agree with a lot of this thread. The art is not worth that amount. Why the hell is this exhibit open while the facility is rented out for a wedding? The insurance company needs to pay out, not litigate a third party into doing their job of paying. And I agree the kids are obviously unsupervised.
But fundamentally, I’m not seeing an “accident” here. Neither the sculpture nor the pedestal were bumped into or blown over or knocked loose by vibrations or anything accidental. The two boys were running around. The boy in question stopped at the pedestal, found a foothold, hoisted himself up, grabbed the statue for a handhold to continue climbing and thereby pulled it down. That’s not an accident, that’s intentional. How is nobody else seeing this?
I’m not saying the insurance company is right. I’m not saying the artist isn’t inflating their price (as some professionals pointed out, they certainly are.) I’m just saying there is no accident. The child acted deliberately. To what extent they/his parents are culpable, I don’t think it applies in this situation because the facility was insured. Either the policy covers it and the insurance pays, or the facility that let the wedding party in for profit violated the policy/failed to secure the valuables as required by the insurer, in which case the facility pays. But if there were no insurance involved, I think this video could demonstrate fault against the kid/family if it actually went to a courtroom. But then again, I don’t think any facility open to the public is ever not insured (?) so probably a moot point.
Lastly, I’m not seeing the hate for the sculpture. I thought it was a perfectly cromulent art object, well executed, and pleasing to the eye—my eye, anyway. Fitting all that glass together took a long time, I’m sure. Just not $132,000 long.
My gut tells me that something with a name like “Aphrodite di Kansas City” couldn’t possibly be worth any more than $500.
This. If the insurance policy says in writing that it’s worth $132,000, and the policy holder paid for the policy, then that’s the payout. The insurer could have easily said “we will not insure it for that amount” when they asked for the quote. But they didn’t, so that’s that.
I’m concerned over how many times this might happen every day but without getting extensive media coverage, such that people are stuck with a stiff bill that they are helpless to do anything about. Something’s bound to happen now one way or another in this case. (I certainly have no doubt that the artist has received a few death threats by now, because Internet.)
Previously:
I thought this was on BoingBoing too, but not that I can find.
and the art unsecured.
Hmmm, which of those was someones job?
See the same post for answer?? I dunno man.
Rich white town has enough disposable revenue to blow 132K on aggressively mediocre art for their racistly-named “community” center but not on something to secure it? What dolt made that decision?
I agree the parents are responsible for their kids and if it was a clock or a piece of furniture I’d take the insurance companie’s side. But setting up an unsecured glittery piece of junk that costs as much as a house in a poor neighborhood in a community center that’s bound to have the entropy machines that are small children seems even more irresponsible than getting distracted from the rugrats for a few minutes.
Fortunately, it’s Overland Park, Kansas, which means the parents likely have enough money to hire a good attorney…
If they were UPS they could try.
A couple of years ago I shipped an LCD monitor with them and bought the insurance - the form asked what it was and what it was worth - I answered both truthfully. It arrived smashed, at which point UPS claimed that their insurance didn’t cover LCD monitors. I made the point (rather forcefully) that the time to tell me that was before accepting the $25 (or whatever it was) premium for insurance on a package that as listed as containing an LCD monitor, and was clearly marked as such.
It took a long time and a lot of emails and phone calls, but they eventually paid me
Both.
Next question.
Correct.
Which of those people is a public employee responsible for the public space?
Isn’t making a claim to an insurer disproportionate to the actual value of the supposedly irreparable item technically insurance fraud? Or does art get more wiggle room due to its highly subjective value?
That also begs the question of whether the insurance company paid out to the artist already. Or are they trying to see if they recover the dubious claim amount before paying out?
It does, but supervision is not the issue. The issue is being dumb enough to display an allegedly valuable artwork unprotected and un- (or inadequately) secured in a venue which by definition will have all sorts of people and all sorts of behaviour happening within.
Being overvalued for insurance purposes?
