My kid threw up on a million-dollar painting once, but luckily it was a Jackson Pollock.
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his foot was block by the podium so it was useless as a momentum catch, therefore the upper torso had go there.
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Ok, I know nothing about art or how itâs displayed. Was this piece free floating in a frame? Why wouldnât it be mounted against a hard back to prevent someone ripping through just like this?
It may be that the crushing of paint from such an impact with hard backing would be harder/more expensive to repair than a tear in the canvas.
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Most stretched-canvas paintings arenât mounted that way. In situations where protecting the painting is a major concern (say, a multimillion-dollar Picasso or the Mona Lisa) they are usually displayed under glass.
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Possibly they made a profit from the insurance, like that time Billy Ray Valentine dropped the vase. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkkM9YAJ-Ts
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Tripping over the âinvisible wallâ!
Has he sold the film rights to his story yet?
If they sued for a significant sum, Iâm pretty sure you could get a lawyer to list all the things the museum did wrong, as already listed by folks here.
Get the museum to pay for damages to his toe and spilling his drink.
Especially not vodka.
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At 1.5 mill, the phrase âjudgement proofâ starts to come up. Hence, insurance. Just because you can sue someone and win, it doesnât mean you can collect. If someoneâs net worth is a couple thousand dollars in assets, you canât make them have money.
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I know of at least one other incident that is exactly the same. A patron tripped over a platform put there to protect the painting and put a big dent in the canvas. In this case it was an Ellsworth Kelly and worth more than $1.5 million. I had dinner with another former art handler tonight and he named a third incident! I think the problem here is the poorly considered attempt at protection that demands that people not be people. That never works! A low platform placed in the middle of a high traffic area will be tripped over. It isnât the fault of the boy, or in my case the elderly woman. I can prove this with one more story which I witnessed myself. We were installing a large show of work from India at the museum and one big sculpture was placed on a pedestal that was surrounded by a low platform meant to keep people back from the object. I even said, âSomeone will trip over that.â (I was thinking of the Kelly painting. Honest.) The next day during a walk through the Director of the museum did just that. Tripping and landing on his hands on the platform. Fortunately he did not hurt himself or the artwork. When we arrived for work the next day the low platform was gone. Why they never created a new position for me as predictor of the obvious I will never understand. They still need someone in that position.
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Ohmygoodness!
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