Boy, 12, Sticks Gum on $1.5M Painting

[bluestateguy]

A little jail time for this kid would not be a bad thing. Somebody needs to be punished here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801235.html

The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 28, 2006; 7:40 PM

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.

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.

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