Making a splash

Last Sunday Vladimir Umanets walked into the Tate Modern and calmly scrawled his name and slogan to the bottom right hand corner of one of Mark Rothko's Seagram murals. He left the gallery without being stopped, and his act was only seen by one visitor who promptly tweeted his shock to the world with a photo. As a devoted admirer of Rothko's work, this story was sent to me by various people and has prompted a number of conversations. There is something iconic (as well as, of course, iconoclastic) about the act of interfering with the surface of a work of art, three aspects of which have been preoccupying me this week.

How did he manage this? The question of gallery security obviously looms large. The Rothko murals are unglazed, are not behind a rope or barrier and, given that the tweeting visitor had to go and find a guard to alert them of the damage, clearly in a room that is not always invigilated. I have posted before about how important I think the job of gallery guarding is both for the visitor and as experience in the sector, but this is sadly one of the roles suffering from the cuts in many museums. But, in any case, had Umanets threatened violence, no assistant is expected to endanger themselves in the cause of art.

So, should these works be given more material protection? The glory of public museums is that they make beautiful things not only available to, but alive for, the public. That, I think, includes a level of trust in allowing a close experience of the works, as they would have been experienced in the past. Thus, the Wallace Collection feels like you are entering someone's home; and the Rothkos are open on the wall to allow full appreciation of their textured paint, as they would have been in the Four Seasons Restaurant. The Louvre's decision to place the Mona Lisa behind barriers and bullet-proof glass has diminished it, for me, to an item of mere economic value, like a diamond in a shop window.

But does any of this really matter? No one died, the painting can be restored - admittedly at some cost, for which I hope Umanets will be charged - and many people will be completely unaware of the incident and indeed care less. It matters, partly, because it threatens the close access that I support above, the easy solution is to barricade in the Rothko. It matters too, however, because it shows that art is still important. The fact that people choose to deface a painting in order to make an ideological statement shows what power these images have in our lives. I am almost reassured. What doesn't matter is advertising an artistic movement through physically damaging the work of another. If Umanets is an artist, he really should have known better.