Art at work

This photo of a kid bunking on a work by Donald Judd at Tate Modern in London did the rounds earlier this week. The photographer tweeted "I told the woman the kids were using a $10mm art work as a toy, she told me I knew nothing abt kids.” The parent’s bite-you response and the hat with ears aside, it’s not the first time such a thing has happened. Many years ago at the Whitney our own three year old son spotting what looked for all the world like a museum couch with its squab missing, attempted to sit on a copper Donald Judd floor sculpture. The ticking off he got from the guard certainly put him off sitting down in galleries although there was also an unintended effect. He switched into Duchamp mode and anything in a gallery (fire hydrants, furniture, humidity readers etc) was instantly converted into art and left the hell alone.