Illegal Lip Prints: Careful What You Kiss

The plain canvas (right) was kissed by Ms Sam/Photo: BBC 

Sometimes you just can’t help it.

You leave a lip print on your water glass or a lip-smear on the collar of Mr. Hottie’s pressed white shirt…but a lipsticked kiss print on the front of a $2.8 million painting?

In what she described as a spontaneous “act of love,” Rindy Sam, a 30-yr-old woman living in France, planted a big smooch on a white Cy Twombly painting that was on exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Unfortunately for Ms. Sam, a French judge found Sam’s resulting lipstick stain to be more of an act of vandalism rather than an act of devotion and ordered her to pay $2,196 in damages.

According to the BBC, restorers working to remove the lipstick stain from the painting still haven’t been able to remove it despite trying 30 different cleaning products.

The “case of the kissed painting” raises some interesting questions about the meaning of Conceptual Art. The painting at the center of this case was basically a blank, white canvas. Did the painting actually invite an act as overt as Sam’s kiss? Did her kiss actually elevate the painting to a new level of meaning?

From a hardcore makeup junkie’s point of view, however, only two questions remain: (1) What kind of ultra long-wearing lipstick was Rindy wearing? And (2) Where can I get it? ;)

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SOURCE: BBC News