A Dublin man who put his fist through a €10 million painting by Claude Monet has stated in court that the incident was a complete accident.  Andrew Shannon was at Dublin’s National Gallery of Ireland last year, when, feeling faint, he fell forward, putting his hand directly through the canvas of Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat, and tearing it.  However, other testimony was less forgiving.  “It was no accident. I did not believe what he was saying as regards his condition. His whole manner was unconvincing. His behavior didn’t ring true to me,” said Christian Clotworthy, the guard at the museum who detained Mr. Shannon. (more…)

A Tale of Two Cities, one of the most impressive works on view at Chris Burden’s current New Museum retrospective, was almost destroyed by the artist before the show.  Fearing the requirements of rehabilitating the long unexhibited piece, Burden had planned to destroy the piece as a last conceptual gesture, but museum authorities stepped in to convince him to try saving the work with a small restored section of the original piece.  “Once he saw the first mock-up, it was like a problem had been solved, and he was on to asking about specific toys,” says Donna Williams, the curator of the Orange County Museum (which owns the work). (more…)

While Olga Dogaru, the Romanian woman who claimed she burnt works by Picasso and Monet in her stove after fearing for the arrest of her son, has since retracted her story, Romanian authorities have identified at least three paintings in the ashes of the woman’s home.  Authorities found nails and tacks, as well as traces of oil paint in Dogaru’s oven, but were unable to correctly identify the paintings as the missing works.  “We found remains of burned oil paintings, but whether they are the ones that were stolen is a separate question, to be determined by prosecutors and judges.”  Says Ernest Oberlaender-Tarnoveanu, head of Romania’s National History Museum. (more…)

A video, released online yesterday and since removed, purportedly depicts artist Richard Prince burning one of the five still disputed Canal Zone pictures that were challenged in court by photographer Patrick Cariou.  While Prince had won the case for the majority of the works in the series, Graduation, the work depicted in the film, was still under consideration for not being fully “transformative.”  Cariou had originally sued to have the works destroyed.  In the video, Prince is quoted as saying “to them this stands for money,” before having an assistant douse the work in gasoline and light it on fire. (more…)