DETROIT - Helen Frankenthaler, the artist who painted "The Bay," an abstract painting valued at $1.5 million that is on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts, said that her painting was "greatly enhanced" by the malicious prank of 12-year-old Sean Cannon who stuck a piece of Wrigley's Extra Polar Ice gum on the painting's lower left corner during a school field trip on Monday. The gum was easily removed from the canvas but left a circular residue, discoloring the painting. Immediately after the incident, Cannon was arrested and briefly detained; his school suspended him; and the Museum filed suit against Cannon and his parents. Cannon protested that he was being treated unfairly because he claims to have gotten the idea from a news account of a boy who defaced a painting of a crucifix at the same museum last month by urinating on it. In that case, however, the boy was lauded as a hero. "That case was altogether different," sniffed the Museum's curator Jingo Bang. "The urinating boy was upholding the highest standards of the arts: he was being invasive, shocking the petty sensibilities of the Christian middle class. In contrast, young Mr. Cannon wasn't doing anything invasisve or anti-Christian, he was merely being destructive."
Concerned Museum curators flew the artist, Ms. Frankenthaler, to Detroit to inspect the painting. They were surprised when she told them she was so impressed by the look of Cannon's "gum mark" that she wanted the boy to be brought back to the museum to "stick even more gum" on the painting.
Cannon's mother brought him back to the Museum, but Ms. Frankenthaler became enraged when she discovered that Cannon had brought Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum with him instead of Wrigley's Extra Polare Ice gum. "That's all we had," pleaded the boy's mother. "I didn't think it mattered." The artist exploded, "You didn't think it matter! Who are you tell me how to paint my pictures? What do you know about genius?" Turning to young Cannon she yelled, "I need Polar Ice, you little bastard," the artist screamed at Cannon, leaving him in tears. Cannon and his mother departed and returned a short time later with the correct gum. He proceeded to chew the gum and then apply it to the canvas to make three additional circular "gum marks" across its bottom of the painting, similar to his original gum mark. Ms. Frankenthaler was ecstatic with the end result and explained that she is abandoning paints and from now on, will work only with Wrigley's Extra Polar Ice gum.
Cannon's school has reinstated him and the Museum has dropped its suit. The Museum believes that the painting's value likely has tripled because of the gum marks. Cannon will be the featured speaker at the Museum's annual open house next week, and other artists have contacted him about "gumming up [their] works." Asked to explain his methods, Cannon explained, "I guess I just try to mess up the picture with gum."
