Pathetic little rick gets two years for efacing Rothko pinting

Wlodzimierz Umaniec, also known as Vladimir Umanets who vandalised one of Tate's  collection of Rothko paintings   has been jailed for two years.

According to the  Guardian Umanets, a 26-year-old Polish national who lives in Worthing, West Sussex, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to criminal damage in excess of £5,000. In this case it was well in excess, with estimates suggesting it will cost more than £200,000 and 20 months to restore.

Judge Roger Chapple, at Inner London crown court, said it was "abundantly clear" that Umaniec was "plainly an intelligent man" who regarded Rothko as a "great painter".

The incident happened at around 3.25pm on 7 October this year, when Umaniec approached one of Rothko's Seagram murals, Black on Maroon, took out a brush and some black paint and wrote his name along with 'A Potential Piece of Yellowism' in the corner of the work.

He later claimed it was an artistic act, comparing himself to Marcel Duchamp, whose appropriation of a urinal in 1917 led to him being regarded as the father of conceptual art. Umaniec had told the BBC: "Art allows us to take what someone's done and put a new message on it."


Rothko's Seagram murals, originally planned for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, were a gift to the Tate by the artist in 1969 and are regarded as some of Tate Modern's most important works.
The court heard that Umaniec went to the gallery intending to put his "signature" on a picture, but decided to damage the Rothko painting only at the time he saw it on display.


The restoration will be long and difficult, not least because Rothko often used unusual materials, including eggs and glue, to create his works.


Two years is a long time but Umanets is a sad littleprick who isn't fit to lick the boots of an artist like Rothko.  Perhas he can treat his prison time as a for mof closed erformance art. Not sure if there is any yellow in his prison gear.

Some things never change

Watercolour by surgeon Charles Bell of a solider wounded at the Battle of Waterloo

Watercolour of Private Green, September 1918 prior to reconstructive surgery by Harold Gillies, the ather of modern plastic surgery.

The surgical skills may have improved in the intervening century but the workload of the army surgeon certainly did not...

Both paintings are included in the current Watercolour exhibition at the Tate Britain.

The exhibition which I visited today, is a comprehensive study of (mainly) British watercolour art from about 1200 to 2010. Arranged by themes it was unsurprising that the wart art had the greatest impact on me, especially Eric Taylor's study of corpses at Belsen.

The exhibition has some dross and a fair few works that left me unmoved either way. That said there is plenty to enjoy (particularly some well loved Turners and Blakes) and it is wel worth a couple of hours.



The same could not be said for the Susan Hiller exhibition - Except for the installation Witness which I loved

Structural "damage" as art form

Be it spiders or slides the central turbine hall of the Tate Britain has been home to controversial installations. Today sees the public opening of its newest installation. It’s a............................. crack in the floor

Shibboleth , by the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, is a deep earthquake crack cut into the concrete floor underfoot. It begins just inside the entrance, as a tiny meandering crack. Gradually, as it proceeds, it opens and deepens and begins to zig-zag wildly across the floor, moving like forked lightning, with branching cracks splitting off here and there. It runs under the mezzanine, and into the rear section of the Hall, and continues to the very end, where, still going strong, it seems to disappear under the back wall. It certainly does sound like it’s a well-achieved effect. Apparently it really does look like the crack really had just appeared, overnight.

Salcedo claims the work, made elsewhere but installed over the past five weeks, took her over a year to construct. "What is important is the meaning of the piece. The making of it is not important," she said. Asked how deep the fissure goes, she replied: "It's bottomless. It's as deep as humanity."According to the artist, the piece is a statement about racism, with the crack representing the gap between white Europeans and the rest of humanity.

Wire mesh is embedded within the exposed opening, used, she said, because it is "the most common means of control used to define borders and divisions. It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred," she said. "The space which illegal immigrants occupy is a negative space. And so this piece is a negative space."

Curator Achim Borchardt-Hume said the work aims to be an interactive experience. "It is something you should engage with close up," he said. "You have to walk the line." But perhaps not too close: Tate confirmed that staff will be on hand to warn visitors about the dangers of tripping and falling. The installation will be removed in April next year when the crack will be filled in.

Hmm what will I see when I next go to the Tate Modern? Will I see a statement on the division between white Europeans and the rest of the world or something that looks like structural damage? Knowing me I will probably see the latter.

Hockney on Turner... and smoking

The Tate Britain is hosting Hockney on Turner, its largest ever display of JMW Turner's watercolour masterpieces. Around 165 watercolours are being shown in six rooms, including The Blue Rigi (left) which was saved for the nation in April. At the heart of the show, Hockney presents his own selection of Turner's colour studies with his own commentary on the processes by which the artist constructed his perspectives of colour and light. Stephen Deuchar, director of Tate Britain, said Hockney had been approached to curate for his "artist's eye".

Speaking at the Clore Gallery yesterday, Hockney reminded the world that he may be one of Britain’s most highly regarded artists but he can also be irascible: during the course of his talk he launched a blistering attack on the impending ban on smoking in enclosed places (In England from 1 July)

"I might point out Turner smoked," he declared, adding it was a fairly common habit among great artists. "Monet smoked, and he died at 86. Picasso and Matisse smoked, and lived to a ripe old age. They didn't have dreary people telling them what to do..... I shall just carry on (smoking after the ban is in place). It won't make any difference to me. "I am appalled at it actually - they are treating us like children. I'm not a schoolboy. [Gordon] Brown thinks he's a prefect and I can't smoke behind the cricket pavilion. You will have lots and lots of people smoking in the street. And then they will start complaining again, that small group. It's not just smoking. People should start standing up for themselves. Where has the awkward squad gone? Where are the Arthur Scargills?"

I have heard Hockney talk about the smoking ban before and he came across like a whining p brat. Personally I won’t be sorry to see smoking banned in pubs, cafes etc, the idea of being able to have a drink and not smell like an ashtray appeals! As for Hockney, he has the right to say what he did of course (believe it or not we do have free speech here in the UK!) but similarly I have the right to think he’s talking through his arse! That said I am looking forward to taking a look at the exhibition.