DETROIT - A 12-year-old visitor to the Detroit Institute of Arts stuck a wad of gum to a $1.5 million painting, leaving a stain the size of a quarter, officials say.

The boy was part of a school group from Holly that visited the museum on Friday, officials say. They say he took a piece of Wrigley's Extra Polar Ice gum out of his mouth and stuck it on Helen Frankenthaler's "The Bay," an abstract painting from 1963.

The museum acquired the work in 1965 and says it is worth about $1.5 million.

The gum stuck to the painting's lower left corner and did not adhere to the fiber of the canvas, officials told the Detroit Free Press. But it left a chemical residue about the size of a quarter, said Becky Hart, assistant curator of contemporary art.

The museum's conservation department is researching the chemicals in the gum to decide which solvent to use to clean it. The museum hopes to make the repair in two weeks and will keep "The Bay" on display in the meantime, she said.

"Our expectation is that the painting is going to be fine," Hart said.

Holly Academy director Julie Kildee said the boy had been suspended from the charter school and says his parents also have disciplined him.

"Even though we give very strict guidelines on proper behavior and we hold students to high standards, he is only 12 and I don't think he understood the ramifications of what he did before it happened, but he certainly understands the severity of it now," said Kildee.
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Heh, dang kids these days

I did something eerily similar when I was younger.....field trip to a museum....didn't want to swallow the gum.....no garbage cans in sight.....
It wasn't a painting worth millions though....least I don't think it was....

rude kids these days, back in my day..... we used the paper wrap the gum came out of.

Thats so funny. Like really funny dude.

.......someone needs a spankin'



why would he stick it to a painting anyway ...

Haha, funny.

The kid should receive a punishment from the court and his parents should be fined about $25,000 dollars. That's how funny it is.

Tie that little bastard to the whipping post.

Kids these days...

EDIT: well, at least the bad kids.

lmao...that's a great idea.

You'd think they'd have such a valuable painting behind a glass window

^Indeed. Considering what some children are capable valuable artworks should be kept well away from little hands.

Is it still worth $1.5M ?

Have to agree with Scorpius, the painting should have been/should be out of reach from the public.

or have those velvet bar thingies around the painting to keep people from touching getting too close

Even my 8 year old cutest-damned-devil of a brother would have enough sense not to do that

P.S. Not that I don't like my brother, but he gets away with everything!!!

At 12 years old I think that he should know about things like this... I don't think that that's something that anyone at that age would do, just a few idiots...

I wonder if he was dared by his friends...?

I'm sure he knew what he was doing. Kids aren't stupid and I wouldn't be surprised if the teacher and/or tour guide (if there was one) told them how valuable the painting was and stressed the importance of the phrase: Do Not Touch.

I agree with everyone here, I mean if I had an art gallery or museum, I'd definately have the valuable items behind glass or at the very least, a velvet rope and alarms.

WTF! Leave it to another American youth to cast our collective moral behavior in the spotlight of scrutiny. To reprimand the kid with a warning American-style isn't gonna cut it; a good, strong singapore-style public caning a la Michael Fay is in order. It'd tell the world, "Yeah, the kid is one of our own, but we're sure as hell gonna beat him like he's yours."

Do that, then get sued for child abuse and any medical charges involved after the beating An "American-style" punshiment would be fine for me... Maybe the kid didn't know how much it was worth? And a caning? Dude, no... You may believe that's okay, but here in America we want to reprimand them without killing the kids...

All I'm saying is make an example out of him. I bet the kid who spray-painted on the building wall in Singapore never did it again. The fact is kids (in Detroit and the rest of the U.S.)grow up thinking either that the rules don't apply to them or they don't need to fear the consequences. I'm not saying to bludgeon the kid with the leg of a wooden table, but a punishment that is fitting of the crime. Any and every museum that sanctions children's development in the humanities does so using "very strict guidelines on proper behavior." Common sense tells us that gum goes in the trash not on the 1.5 million dollar painting. Unless the kid rode in on the short bus to school (in which case he shouldn't be in a museum) he should have known better . Its half-ass parenting established on the fundamentals of a society that is so concerned with being politically correct that it breeds and perpetuates a cycle of ineffective social and personal development. It's not that I'm a fascist or that I promote/condone child abuse, I just know that my actions were guided by the simplest dichotomy of reactions by the age of 5. In other words, good actions equate to everyone maintaining a happy stasis, bad actions equate to an unpleasantly administered lesson learned.

^^^that's funny, I'm an American and grew up knowing breaking rules had consequences...don't judge a nation by a single person... please take your anti-US sentiment elsewhere...

Why blame the museum for not putting glass and velvet ropes in front of the painting? Blame the victim?

The kid didn't need to know that the painting was worth 1.5mil -- he's in a museum, there is a painting on the wall -- you don't stick your gum on it! If he's at his friend's house and little Bobby (age 3)'s crayon drawing is on the fridge -- you don't stick your gum on it!

No respect. The kid needs to be punished, and the family needs to fork over the cash for the repairs.

I've got to agree here. It seems like the boy got a slap on the wrist, if even that. it doesn't matter if he knew how much the painting was worth. if it was only worth a few hundred dollars, that's still disrespectful and a douchebag thing to do. the place was an art museum, so it goes without saying that you respect the art. just like if you go to a zoo you respect the animals, you go to the theater you respect the performers and be quiet. at 12, a kid knows the difference between right and wrong. i wonder exactly how his parents disciplined him?

First off, I'm an American, born and raised. Secondly, I believe that [with few exceptions] it is pretty much safe to assume that human beings, as a species, have a stranglehold on the whole cause/effect theory. As I'm sure most animals capable of cognition do too. I would not care to 'judge a nation' by a single person either, that's irrational. Although the tone is often rash, as a rule, I leave judgement alone. It's the favorite tool of the ignorant to help them assume they even know what they are talking about
As shocking and unfortunate as it may seem, America will always be criticised, and the actions of Americans will always be the subject of global scrutiny. We cannot and will not ever be able to escape it, so long as we continue to be the political shotcaller. It upsets me that we always hear about the American kid who got caught vandalizing in a foreign country, or the kid who thought to affix his expended piece of bubbalicious onto an object that is not only in part elemental to the reason why he is not in school that particular day, but also an object of unmistakable value. These types of stories are always going to make the job of mud-slinging easier for the international media.
People are quick to judge, and you can't blame them when we can't even prevent pre-pubescent school kids from mistaking a multi-million dollar piece of art for a trash can.

I doubt someone would put a pice of gum on a lion


This kid needs to be punishied depending on the severity of his crime i mean if its a 15th century painting by Micheangleo Than beat the livin sh** out of him but if its a 20th century painting then just cover him in gum

That's what I'm saying!!

If that was my son, he would get in a ass kicking in the privacy of our own home. Then I would make him write a letter to apology for his behavior and have him read it out loud to the person who runs the place!