A Cy Twombly sculpture was knocked over Sunday, March 22, and the modern wing in the Texan private museum, The Menil Collection, was the “scene of the crime,” reports Glasstire.
On that fateful Sunday, a museum-goer to the Texas museum backed into the piece and reportedly knocked if off its black platform, detaching its top half in the process.
Houston-based artist John Hovig snapped the revealing photo and posted a cropped version to his Facebook account shortly after the incident, saying, “An untitled Twombly sculpture (1954) gets an accidental hit. When I heard the noise from the other room, I assumed it was a new piece of kinetic art. The two curators below were righting it as I left.” Hovig’s friend Robert Boyd then posted the full image to his blog The Great God Pan Is Dead.
No one was hurt in the accident, and according to Glasstire, the piece is now with the museum’s conservation team. Thankfully, “you break it, you buy it” doesn’t apply to modern art.
The Renzo Piano–designed museum, founded in June 1987, houses the 17,000-piece collection of John de Menil, an American businessman, and his wife, Dominique de Menil. Included are works by Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, and Robert Rauschenberg.
For other smashing good art see, Miami Artist Who Smashed Ai Weiwei’s Vases Pleads Guilty and €10 Million Punched-Out Monet Goes Back on View.
Cy Twombly, Untitled (1954).
Photo: via Glasstire.