Posted on 04/12/2023 2:37:36 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A sculpture by Damien Hirst was the subject of a different kind of spectacle last month, after a woman drove her Rolls-Royce sedan onto the property of its owners.
According to a police report, on March 31 a 66-year-old woman drove her blue and gray luxury car through a driveway on Canterbury Lane, hit a curb, kept driving, and hit a “coral art sculpture”. It then drove through a landscape fence and onto the beach.
The Rolls Royce sedan that crashed through 102 Canterbury Lane in Palm Beach. Photo courtesy of Palm Beach Police. That sculpture was Hirst’s 2017 work Sphinx, which intended to conjure the impression of a 2,000-year-old art and artifacts recovered from a shipwreck adorned with the barnacles, patination, and coral growth. The work was displayed at the Venice Biennale in 2017 as part of the artist’s exhibition “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable“. (The show was located in collector François Pinault’s palatial spaces, the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana.) It was a generally panned presentation, with ARTnews reviewing it as disastrous and “one of the worst exhibitions of contemporary art staged in the past decade”.
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A Rolls Royce sedan crashed into Damien Hirst’s Sphinx, reportedly valued at $3 million, at the home of Top 200 collectors Steven and Lisa Tananbaum in Palm Beach. Courtesy of Palm Beach Police. Photos from the Palm Beach police appear to show the Hirst sculpture knocked off its pedestal and lacking many of the bright colors from the original exhibition. Lisa Tananbaum told police the value of the sculpture was approximately $3 million, but “she would need an expert to assess the damage further.”
The Tananbaums are no strangers to litigating for their art. In early 2020, Steven Tananbaum and Gagosian reached a settlement over a lawsuit filed by the hedge fund manager against the mega-gallery over the alleged non-delivery of three Jeff Koons sculptures. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, and all claims and counterclaims were dismissed.
I have always tried to drive my Rolls-Royce carefully. You would never catch me doing something like this.
I assume this was a medical or sobriety issue?
The sculpture owner needs to put it under the sea, for more coral to take it over and hide any blemishes it may have received.
“reportedly valued at $3 million”
Do you think the insurance company will believe that?
I always use a 1962 Checker Cab when doing sculpture destruction, so no real loss if I beach it on a seawall.
When I saw “Rolls-Royce crashing into 3 million dollar statue” the first thing I did was check the address but it wasn’t in my neighborhood so we’re OK.
White people...am I right?
In Italy when over consuming the grappa, I used a Vespa. It was no good for statue demolition. Never did succeed at inflicting even minor damage to the statue. The Vespa and me, yes.
I hope you had your crash helmet on.
We don’t even have to look
The sculpture looks better now
The sphinx is black, the woman is white.
Racism.
"The ink is black, the page is white...."
It was an “art happening”. Probably made the sculpture more valuable.
First world problems, am I right?!
Were they driving or just passengers wanting to drive?
That looks like a rag top Wraith. Very fast cars. I do work for a woman who has the hard top/non-convertible version. Hers is a 2020. She also has a Ford truck...nobody is perfect...
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