Teenager smashes rare Mayan and Chinese art in museum rampage, police say

Museum officials unable to explain motive behind teenager's 'weird and unreasonable' actions

A man was arrested at the Denver Art Museum over the weekend after he pushed over an exhibition case and hurled works of art to the floor, damaging rare Mayan artefacts and a Qing dynasty Chinese vase, according to Denver police.

The man, Jake Siebenlist, 18, was charged with criminal mischief on Sunday. The vandalism began when Mr Siebenlist shoved patrons aside and, as he was being pursued, grabbed sculptures he threw across the gallery and smashed to the floor, police said. He also tried to damage two paintings enclosed in protective plastic before museum officials tackled him to the ground, according to police.

At a news conference on Monday, museum officials could not explain Mr Siebenlist’s actions. “If you destroy artwork in a gallery, that is, to begin with, pretty weird,” said Christoph Heinrich, director of the museum. “And he was very aggravated and, obviously, not in a state of mind that was reasonable.”

In all, 10 works were damaged, including the Chinese vase with phoenixes, a Mayan vessel shaped like a fish, and a wolf mask and headdress. The value of the objects was not disclosed. They were part of a new exhibition, Stampede: Animals in Art, a more than 300-piece show on display until May that highlights artwork from the museum’s collection.

The incident was captured on surveillance video, which has not been released. Mr Heinrich said Mr Siebenlist, who had bought a ticket to the show, did not explain his motivation but used “a lot of force,” suggesting his actions were not accidental. The artwork in the exhibition was not controversial, Mr Heinrich said.

Conservators are assessing the damage, and Mr Heinrich said he hoped all of the objects would be repaired. In addition to the damaged pieces, the exhibition includes artwork from well-known artists including photographers Elliott Erwitt and Eadweard Muybridge and from sculptors Deborah Butterfield and Frederic Remington. There is also a centuries-old guardian lion from northern Thailand.

“This is a totally unreasonable, weird thing and it happened the very first time in my museum career,” Mr Heinrich said. He added it was also a first for the museum.

People have been known to purposely damage art in museums, although such incidents are rare. In 1972, a man struck Michelangelo’s Pietà statue with a hammer several times, damaging the nose and arm of the Virgin Mary, who holds a crucified Jesus in her lap. (The sculpture is housed at the Vatican.) Two years later, Tony Shafrazi, who would later become a gallery owner, spray-painted the words “Kill Lies All” over Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

More recent cases have been accidental, particularly among the selfie-taking crowd. This year, a wall was knocked over at an exhibition in Russia, damaging artwork by Francisco Goya and Salvador Dalí. In 2017, a visitor taking a selfie at the 14th Factory, a temporary arts space in Los Angeles, knocked down a row of crown sculptures in a domino effect, causing about $200,000 (£160,000) in damage.

The New York Times