Don’t You Dare Try To Tell Me You’ve Never Thought About Punching A Priceless Work Of Art -The Toast

Don’t You Dare Try To Tell Me You’ve Never Thought About Punching A Priceless Work Of Art

ByDaniel Mallory Ortberg

on December 8, 2014 in Art

Fuck you right into eternity if you try to pretend even for a second that you are not consumed with jealousy for this man, that you would not be in exactly his position if you possessed the merest suggestion of a spine:

A man who punched a hole through a painting worth nearly £8 million painting has been jailed.

Andrew Shannon, 49, ruined the Claude Monet masterpiece hanging in the National Gallery Ireland in 2012 by attacking it in front of stunned art lovers.

On Thursday a court finally brought him to justice for his crime.

The famous painting, titled Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat, was left with a large hole through the middle of it.

It is valued at $10 million (£7.8 million).

Mr Shannon told the police after his arrest he committed the thoughtless act of vandalism in an attempt to ‘get back at the state.’

1. That is a perfectly good way to get back at the state.

2. Look at how incredibly satisfying that punch-hole is. Just imagine punching through an old piece of art with your own hand. It feels incredible. Don’t pretend you’re not thinking about it.

3. Monet painted like 800 paintings of sailboats, we’re not exactly hurting for pastel dots in the shape of old French boats, as a society, and also Monet is dead. It’s not like this guy punched something rare.

4. DON’T PRETEND YOU’RE TOO GOOD TO WANT TO PUNCH ART. YOU’RE JUST RULED BY YOUR FEARS. THIS MAN IS BRAVER THAN US ALL.

5. Like you’ve never wanted to just fuck up some art or something

6. Look at that idyllic goddamn scene, there’s like one and a half colors in it, this painting looks like it is asleep. This painting needed a good punch in the middle to liven things up.

7. I would give anything in the word to hit a very old drawing of a boat right in the canvas. This man is living his best life, and the rest of us are shadows on the wall.

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

Comments (177)

Logging you in...

Dashboard | Edit profile | Logout

Logged in as

+147 Vote up Vote down

anninyn 124p · 539 weeks ago

Personally I've always wanted to draw a moustache and comedy eyebrows on one of the millions of pictures of old, rich, white men that populate every art gallery ever.

Or punch them.

Or both.

6 replies · active 534 weeks ago

+58 Vote up Vote down

DishKit · 539 weeks ago

Lemme just drop the mic for you

+104 Vote up Vote down

Blanche de Shambles · 539 weeks ago

I would fold a Toulouse-Lautrec litho into a sort of jaunty hat.

3 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+109 Vote up Vote down

amalmohtar 152p · 539 weeks ago

"this painting looks like it is asleep."

My world went quiet, as did my soul.

+82 Vote up Vote down

delphinedryden 117p · 539 weeks ago

I thought painting TIE fighters and AT-ATs on them was brave but now I see I just lacked purity of vision.

1 reply · active 539 weeks ago

+3 Vote up Vote down

jekyllian 141p · 539 weeks ago

#3 & #6, yes!

+67 Vote up Vote down

inferiorwit 136p · 539 weeks ago

Look at the frame they put on that fucker. The person who framed that painting knew it was boring and desperately tried to liven it up a little.

+159 Vote up Vote down

Sean_Sullivan 142p · 539 weeks ago

Now that you mention it, I would like to see a team of football players crash through "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" like it was a paper homecoming banner.

9 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+101 Vote up Vote down

mlitiagrl 110p · 539 weeks ago

"Living his best life." Ain't that the fucking truth. There's a statue of a giraffe down in the lobby in my office building; I think I'll go punch it in its smug giraffe face.

4 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+9 Vote up Vote down

Kate · 539 weeks ago

Now it is new art
http://salvageartinstitute.org/benlerner_damageco...

1 reply · active 535 weeks ago

+108 Vote up Vote down

middlemarch 137p · 539 weeks ago

I have an uncle who touched a Rembrandt once because he claimed that the feathers on the goose in the painting were so lifelike that they couldn't be painted. Of course, this is the same uncle who, as a teenager, lied down on George Armstrong Custer's grave pretending he had an arrow through his chest because he and my mom were really into Little Big Man.

My uncle is kind of weird.

4 replies · active 529 weeks ago

+93 Vote up Vote down

Kaete 116p · 539 weeks ago

Never had an urge to punch art, but at the British Museum I surprised myself with an incredible urge to physically drag away a tourist that was clambering all over a FIVE THOUSAND year old statue so her friend could take a picture.

I was slightly horrified that they didn't have better protection for the artwork.

8 replies · active 538 weeks ago

+65 Vote up Vote down

cloudiah 117p · 539 weeks ago

Also, he definitely got back at the state with this one. State, consider yourself gotten back at!

1 reply · active 539 weeks ago

+84 Vote up Vote down

wallofillusion 127p · 539 weeks ago

This is kind of a different subject--kind of--but once, a substitute teacher rubber-stamped right in the middle of a picture my friend was drawing in his sketchbook. Right in the middle of it! I have never forgiven the substitute teacher for it.

2 replies · active 469 weeks ago

+74 Vote up Vote down

bird_internet 123p · 539 weeks ago

I saw this story this weekend and immediately thought "that's so badass" but then I mentioned it to a friend who's a normal human and they were like "how awful!" I'm glad the toast has my back.

+230 Vote up Vote down

zachariahary 147p · 539 weeks ago

Last time I was in the Met I was stuck in a really long line to get into an exhibit and there it was. The same sibilant voice, hissing so softly I could almost convince myself I was imagining it. But I knew it was real, I felt it in my bones.
"Lick the Rodinssssss. Lick them alllll."

19 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+89 Vote up Vote down

hopelessshade 102p · 539 weeks ago

Nope.

Signed,
An Art Conservator (in-training)

5 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+31 Vote up Vote down

typewriterandgramophone 124p · 539 weeks ago

On the one hand, there was one piece of stupid-ass public art that turned up in a place I loved and made a lot of people there very unhappy and when someone did finally vandalize it I did a little secret happy dance.

On the other, I would like to throw mud at this woman and scream at her: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/16/worl...

So my feelings are mixed but violent, and it depends on whether I like the art or not.

4 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+83 Vote up Vote down

queenofbithynia 137p · 539 weeks ago

Does everybody else remember that guy who criticized the Mondrian by vomiting on it? Three quarters of my conversational similes involve me comparing myself in some ways to "that guy who puked on the Mondrian" and sometimes I worry that not everybody knows what I am talking about anymore if, indeed, they ever did.

p.s. I don't want to punch any art just now but there's a life-size wooden John the Baptist in the National Gallery that I would seduce if tourists wouldn't stare.

2 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+178 Vote up Vote down

maccrocodile 144p · 539 weeks ago

I was at a Frida Kahlo exhibit once with my sister. Wandering around, I noticed several pieces that said they were painted on metal.

I leaned over to my sister and whispered, "When it says it's painted on metal, don't you want to just reach out and... ting the edge of it?"

It was not my sister who was standing next to me. I no longer trust my peripheral vision to identify people.

+5 Vote up Vote down

mgroves · 539 weeks ago

I totally want to snack on some Blake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOsnN408weA

+10 Vote up Vote down

SaraClue · 539 weeks ago

Balthus. I would fight Balthus.

1 reply · active 530 weeks ago

+12 Vote up Vote down

bibliophibian 116p · 539 weeks ago

I would LOVE to punch this particular piece of public art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Fountain
...but I would probably get electrocuted? Seriously, though, I hate that thing with a mad passion.

+11 Vote up Vote down

mantelli · 539 weeks ago

My art museum had a so-called sculpture for some months made out of road chat piled in a circle. I really wanted to bring in a kid's toy bulldozer and drop it into the thing.

10 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+13 Vote up Vote down

aqwaplop 143p · 539 weeks ago

That frame looks more fun to destroy than the painting itself. I wanna wing it into the wall and dent it into a D and then slam dunk it in a dumpster. I want this very badly.

+102 Vote up Vote down

thatrobin 116p · 539 weeks ago

I have poked a Degas!

When I was fourteen and in Paris with my grandmother, I was at the Musee d'Orsay, and standing alone in front of one of the paintings of ballerinas, and I just... reached out and poked the corner.

And then I just walked away, half expecting to be tackled by security guards. It was amazing.

2 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+127 Vote up Vote down

Linette 125p · 539 weeks ago

The Monet becomes even more valuable for having been punched. It survives its assault and goes on to draw crowds fascinated by the open wound. Art collectors begin to pay thugs to punch their paintings, raising their value exponentially. These are not your ordinary masterworks. These are the ones that survived battery by plebians and fools. These are the noble warriors of art.

At least that's gonna be how I spin it once I punch something of Picasso's.

+46 Vote up Vote down

lil_benny 0p · 539 weeks ago

Hey, if no on wants that painting because it's "ruined", I'll definitely take it.

+88 Vote up Vote down

longlostlullaby 122p · 539 weeks ago

All I ever want to do in museums is chip away at the paint on the thick oil paintings. Imagine how satisfying it would be to just slowly peel apart a Van Gogh or Monet and drop the pieces on the floor like chipped off nail polish.

3 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+79 Vote up Vote down

mrtafadhali 113p · 539 weeks ago

Not that there is NO punchable art in the world, but honestly looking at the photograph is making me feel rather faint and nauseated.

I can barely watch fight scenes in superhero movies because I'm too overwhelmed thinking "WHAT ABOUT THE PROPERTY DESTRUCTION?", seeing someone actually punch a hole in a Monet is killing my soul a bit.

3 replies · active 530 weeks ago

+11 Vote up Vote down

JLS · 539 weeks ago

Hmmm, suppose museums place a metal plate (assuming a conservator friendly one...if that even exists? Apologies for my art preservation ignorance) directly behind (but not touching - I'm assuming that would be a no-no?) all canvases hanging in museums and don't tell anyone! Yes, I enjoy watching karma in action, especially when it involves a$$holes being violently injured due to their own folly!

1 reply · active 539 weeks ago

+64 Vote up Vote down

LeastBittern 120p · 539 weeks ago

When I was eighteen, I drank some coffee and took a new migraine medication just before going into the SF MOMA and was asked to leave about an hour later for touching a sculpture. A shiny, shiny sculpture.

I went back ten years later (My mother in law: "Should we get coffee first?") and that sculpture is now in a glass case, which I choose to mean that MANY people touched it.

1 reply · active 539 weeks ago

+26 Vote up Vote down

Mira · 539 weeks ago

But how could this man have passed up the opportunity to punch a Warhol painting and then declare I Punched Andy Warhol?

+40 Vote up Vote down

winterbymorning 133p · 539 weeks ago

At 18 I kicked a piece at a modern art museum. It was literally just a pile of large glass shards, about knee-height, and it had a pretentious, nonsensical title like "The New Atlantis," and something about it just filled me with rage. There was a large cluster of people around me so after performing my act of non-peaceful protect I sauntered away and the guards never caught me (if they were even looking for me; perhaps they were privately cheering me on and chose to pretend they hadn't heard the tinkling of the glass as it broke further).

What confuses me is how far from the wall the painting must have been for this dude to actually be able to punch a hole right through the canvas. I would have assumed it would be so close that at best he would have warped the canvas a little bit, but hit the wall long before piercing it.

1 reply · active 539 weeks ago

+88 Vote up Vote down

popjunkie42 97p · 539 weeks ago

Can I skip the art and just punch Damien Hirst in the face?

2 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+38 Vote up Vote down

Either_Ada 139p · 539 weeks ago

So this happened at my old school: http://www.thejustice.org/article/2014/11/vandali...

My first reaction was not to be horrified that someone ruined a rare edition of The Raven with booze, but that the booze was Bailey's. BAILEY'S. So embarrassing. If you're going to have a secret ceiling cache of library booze, let it be at least a mid-grade sipping whiskey.

2 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+8 Vote up Vote down

typewriterandgramophone 124p · 539 weeks ago

I know. I know. It's unimaginable.

+40 Vote up Vote down

lauralizabethm 119p · 539 weeks ago

When I was a kid, I went to acting classes at a regional theatre that had- possibly still has- a huge, ugly sculpture in the lobby. If I recall correctly, it was called "The Late Shift," and it was of a woman kissing her husband before he left for work. I walked up to it, took a good look, then reached out and WHUMPED it as hard as I could.

My teachers told me not to do it again, but they also said "it's ugly as sin, and we don't know why it's still here." It was an immensely satisfying WHUMP.

+12 Vote up Vote down

jtradke 117p · 539 weeks ago

I bet that painting just went up in value.

+38 Vote up Vote down

foxinthe_snow 130p · 539 weeks ago

I'm trying to think of art that I would punch and all I can think about it my intense desire to yank Ernest Hemingway's beard right off.

I would also snip the collars off all his fisherman's jumpers.

ETA: thought of one. William Theed's monstrosity of a statue depicting Victoria gazing lovingly up at Albert's mutton chops while she's dressed as a Saxon queen and he's some sort of Saxon schoolgirl in knee-socks.

6 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+47 Vote up Vote down

Yarnybarny 117p · 539 weeks ago

I got to visit Japan when I was 15 for a student conference and my immediate reaction to being shown to my host family's beautiful guest room was a deep, deep desire to punch in one of the sliding paper wall panels. Even at 15 I knew this was why I could never have nice things.

+62 Vote up Vote down

GoatseFanfic 120p · 539 weeks ago

There is no such thing as a ten million goddamn dollar painting, no artist has ever recieved $10 million for their work, that painting is theMy Super Sweet Sixteen kid throwing a tantrum over getting a new car on the wrong day of art.

That guy turned a billionaire's plaything into a performance piece and that he got jail time for this just shows that the West is as regressive as any Chinese bureaucrat trying to suppress Ai Weiwei

+31 Vote up Vote down

urspostrophe 122p · 539 weeks ago

Aww man. I saw a little girl reach out and touch a sculpture at some art museum in Pittsburgh, and the guards went berserk. Like, running over, grabbing their walkie-talkies *KSSHH* Yes we have a code 9 on the 4th floor, requesting backup *KSSHH.* I felt so bad for the kid, she was like six years old and majorly embarrassed.

This post was extremely satisfying for me.

2 replies · active 539 weeks ago

+5 Vote up Vote down

YeahJustAlice 102p · 539 weeks ago

BRB, just making a GIF of that bit in Parade's End where the BAMFy suffragette has at the Rokeby Venus with a fuck- off hammer and Valentine's standing there like 'oh whuuuut...eh, it's not right but it's okay'.

+16 Vote up Vote down

moxycrimefighter 112p · 539 weeks ago

Whenever I see anything beautiful or fragile, my first impulse is to smash it into a billion pieces. Drop the vase, topple the statue, punch the painting - I would do it all if I didn't think my mother the art historian/conservationist would have a heart attack and die just so she could haunt me.

+27 Vote up Vote down

beakbreath 131p · 539 weeks ago

This is totally bogus: "Mr Shannon told the police after his arrest he committed the thoughtless act of vandalism in an attempt to ‘get back at the state’ however while in court he tried to play it off as an accident by reportedly claiming he ‘felt faint’ and fell into the painting."

Come on, bro.

+32 Vote up Vote down

raincloudknits 81p · 539 weeks ago

That guy's face, though.

1 reply · active 539 weeks ago

+48 Vote up Vote down

beakbreath 131p · 539 weeks ago

Dude was smashing paintings in a free museum, but "Upon raiding Mr Shannon’s Dublin home after his arrest, police found nearly 50 stolen items, including valuable artworks, books and antiques." That's some Batman villain level weirdness.

+32 Vote up Vote down

theowlofderision 103p · 539 weeks ago

srsly guys no I work in a museum have you any idea how much paperwork this generates for me

*looks at art history PhD*
*remembers dreams of research*
*cries while filling in damage reports*

+21 Vote up Vote down

chickpeas · 539 weeks ago

I've never felt the desire to punch a painting, but there are a large number of "architecturally significant" buildings I'd like to burn to the fucking ground, so we'll call it even.

Post a new comment

Comment as a Guest, or login:

Submit Comment

Subscribe to

Comments by IntenseDebate