French Court limits Pinocelli Vandalism Fine to $18,600

PORT’s Jessica Bromer reports that a French court has reduced the original $260,000 fine against 78-year-old M. Pinocelli to $18,600. Pinocelli chipped M. Duchamp’s Fountain with a hammer and scrawled on it with a pen.

I imagine M. Duchamp would approve:

"The artist himself does not count, because there is no actual existence for the work of art. The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something – like electricity. But the onlooker has the last word, and it is always posterity that makes the masterpiece. The artist should not concern himself with this, because it has nothing to do with him.

- Marcel Duchamp, In Art

via PORT