Pinoncelli Fined €200,000 for Hammer Attack on Duchamp's Fontaine

On January 24, 2006, a Paris court fined artist Pierre Pinoncelli €200,000 for damaging Marcel Duchamp's 1964 replica of Fontaine during the Dada exhibition at the Centre Pompidou (October 5, 2005 – January 9, 2006). Pinoncelli struck the urinal with a hammer and inscribed 'dada' in black felt-tip pen, claiming he wanted to 'give the work some life' and comparing his act to an auctioneer's gavel. He had previously attacked a Fontaine replica in 1993 at the opening of Carré d'art in Nîmes. The Centre Pompidou sued him this time. Pinoncelli is appealing. The 1964 replica is one of eight editions produced by Arturo Schwartz; two sold in 1999 and 2002 for $1.7 million and $1.1 million respectively. The damaged work was valued at €2.8 million before the attack. Duchamp's original 1917 Fontaine was rejected by the Society of Independent Artists in New York and subsequently lost; only a photograph by Alfred Stieglitz survives. The Dada exhibition catalogue did not reproduce the 1964 Fontaine. Commentators Laurent Lebon (exhibition curator), Emmanuel Guigon (Strasbourg Museum of Modern Art), and Ghislain Mollet-Viéville (art agent) offered perspectives on the work's status and replicas. Collector José Mograbi, owner of a replica, noted Duchamp's mockery of collectors.