Drunk Attacks $30M Painting

Woman punches iconic modern art piece, tries to pee on it: officials
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 6, 2012 12:28 AM CST
Drunk Attacks $30M Clyfford Still Painting
Still's 1957-J-No. 2 stands nearly 10 feet tall and 13 feet wide and is valued at more than $30 million.   (AP Photo/Clyfford Still Museum)

A Denver woman, apparently incredibly drunk and not a fan of modern art, has been arrested for attacking a $30 million painting at a Denver museum. Witnesses said Carmen Tisch pulled her pants down, punched Clyfford Still's 1957-J-No. 2 repeatedly and then slid her bare butt down the painting, apparently trying to urinate on it. Instead, she collapsed in a heap and urinated on herself, according to observers. The 36-year-old woman has been charged with criminal mischief.

"It doesn't appear she urinated on the painting or that the urine damaged it, so she's not being charged with that," a spokeswoman for the local district attorney's office tells the Denver Post. "You have to wonder where her friends are." Officials at the Clyfford Still Museum say the attack caused close to $10,000 in damage to the painting, although the owner of a Denver art gallery believes the contact with Tisch's tush will wipe a lot more off its value. "It does damage the piece, even people just knowing that happened," he says. (More modern art stories.)

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