11. DAMIEN HIRST IS RUBBISHED AND INKED
Art not recognized as art has often fallen prey to cleaners. The most celebrated case is cleaner Emmanuel Asare's bin-bagging at London's Eyestorm Gallery in 2001 of Damien Hirst's installation Painting by Numbers, a representation of his studio and its detritus. "I didn't think for a second it was art," explained Asare. Hirst found this hysterical. Less so the pouring of black ink into his sculpture Away From the Flock during an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in 1994. The perpetrator, artist Mark Bridger, re-labeled the piece Black Sheep. "I was providing an interesting addendum to his work," said Bridger in court.
12. MICHELANGELO TAKES A HAMMERING
In St Peter's in Rome in 1972, geologist Laszlo Toth attacked the Virgin cradling Jesus in Michelangelo's Pieta, removing her arm at the elbow and most of her nose, and chipping her eye. He explained: "Today is my 33rd birthday, the age Christ died. I did it because the mother of God does not exist. I am Christ. I am Michelangelo. Now I can die." And in 1991, an unsuccessful artist hammered a toe off David, leading conservators to discover the origins of Michelangelo's marble.
13. TRACEY EMIN'S BED SPRINGS ARE TESTED
In 1999, at Tate Britain, artists Yuan Cai and JJ Xi intervened in Tracey Emin's installation My Bed. "Although they got on the bed for a few seconds, mostly they just threatened guards with kung-fu kicks," said witness Harry Pye. "They realized we were serious artists - doing it purely from a creative point," said Xi. "Don't take seriously Emin saying we were 'like failed artists threatening to jump off Waterloo Bridge unless given a gallery' - probably she got drunk." In 2000, Cai and Xi urinated on Marcel Duchamp's La Fontaine to alleged cheers from Tate Modern visitors.
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