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Josef Klimeš "Rovnováha" / Governmental neglect

In July 2026, this 1988 outdoor sculpture collapsed while installed beside Prague's Barrandov Bridge.

Installed in 1988, the monumental concrete sculpture, popularly known as "Worm the Conqueror," actually took its form from the geographical profile of the Vltava riverbed, which Klimeš turned into a three-dimensional graphic symbol. It was considered one of the defining works of public art in Prague - but after nearly forty years, the piece had deteriorated to the point that it physically fell apart, sending tons of debris onto the roads and pathways below. (There were no reported injuries.)

In terms of causes, experts cited a number of potential factors, from insufficient municipal management to the effects of weather and climate change - but as it turns out, city officials had long been aware of the sculpture's poor condition and had actually planned to discuss a proposal for the work's controlled demolition and replacement the following week - but the piece fell apart before that meeting could take place.

In the wake of this incident, the city allocated CZK 13 million to recreate the work, using original project documentation as well as a detailed 3D scan of the sculpture that was carried out in the months leading up to its collapse.

Head of Christ (fragment of a crucifix) by Lando di Pietro / bomb

In January 1944, this 14th-century sculpture - a life-sized crucifix carved from walnut and painted in polychrome - was almost entirely destroyed while on view at the Basilica di San Bernardino all’Osservanza in Siena, Italy.

Originally produced in 1338 as a gift for a Sienese religious confraternity, the work had hung above the church's altar for nearly six centuries before an Allied bombing raid devastated the Basilica and its holdings. (As it turned out, the bombers had actually meant to strike a nearby train station, where munitions routinely journeyed on their way to Mussolini’s troops - but they missed, hitting the church instead.)

Only a handful of fragments from the crucifix survived the attack, including one knee and, most notably, Christ's severed head, which was nearly split in two, now missing the lower jaw and bearing a dramatic vertical split running down the center of the forehead.

The damage was severe - but with it came a revelation: In the aftermath, scraps of parchment were discovered, hidden inside the figure's skull. They had been placed there by the work's creator, Lando di Pietro, and featured an inscription in which he identified himself as the author and prayed to God for the world's health and "mercy on all generations." He also reminded viewers that, despite the lifelike qualities of his work, their devotion should be directed not toward the wooden image itself, but toward God.

Di Pietro was best known as a goldsmith and architect, so had the crucifix survived intact, its authorship - and the fuller picture of Di Pietro's artistic practice - would likely have remained a mystery.

René Magritte "The Castle of the Pyrenees" / pine cone

In June 2026, this 1959 painting was damaged while on view at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

A six-year-old boy, visiting the museum with his family, had picked up a pine cone in the museum’s sculpture garden and carried it with him into the gallery; he proceeded to press the cone directly into Magritte's work, puncturing the canvas.

A security guard quickly intervened, and the painting - which the museum had resisted placing under glass or alarming in order to "allow visitors as unrestricted a viewing experience as possible" - was brought to conservators for repairs, which were estimated to take a few weeks before the work could be put back on public display.

Various statues / botched restoration

In June 2026, a series of statues depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ were the victims of ill-conceived restorations, with Jesus, Mary and other religious figures transformed into cartoonish caricatures with bulging eyes, bright red lips, and arched eyebrows.

The figures were installed in the Praça do Cruzeiro public square in Carmo do Cajuru, Brazil. The local parish, Nossa Senhora do Carmo, had commissioned the restoration after noticing that the statues had become faded due to exposure to the sun and weather - but when the results were unveiled to the public, they were met with an immediate outcry from locals.

The parish did not disclose who was behind the heavy-handed renovation - but in the face of controversy, they had the paint removed later that same day, returning the works to their original white finish before promising to commission a new, more proper restoration.

Various works by Antonio Canova / bombs

In December 1917, during the Word War I Battle of Monte Grappa, a large-caliber grenade fired by Austrian forces burst through the roof of the Plaster Cast Gallery at the Museo Gypsotheca Anotnio Canova of Possagno, Italy. Amid the resulting shower of rubble and debris, dozens of original plaster casts and marble sculptures by the Italian neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova were seriously damaged or, in some cases, completely destroyed.

Immediately following the attack, the damaged works were documented by photographers Stefano and Siro Serafin; these images of the "wounded" masterworks would become poignant symbols of the devastation caused by the Great War.

With the conclusion of the war, the museum underwent a major restoration and eventually reopened in 1922. Decades later, amid the violence of World War II, the surviving pieces were temporarily moved to the nearby Temple of Possagno before eventually being returned.

Clarence Heyward “Man in the Garden” / unidentified sharp object

In May 2026, this 2025 painting was attacked while on view at the Houston Museum of African American Culture.

According to reports, two young white men dressed in black and carrying a bag entered the museum; as described by John Guess Jr., the museum’s chief executive emeritus and exhibition curator, “they took something like a screwdriver or some scissors, and they scraped across part of the painting, and put a hole” in the canvas, causing an estimated $4,500 in damage.

Guess also told news outlets that before damaging Heyward’s painting, the men had visited another exhibition at the museum, which featured work by the artist Kandy G. Lopez, who is also Black, where they apparently asked another visitor to take a picture of them giving the middle finger to one of Lopez’s works.

As it stands, the perpetrators haven't been identified - as Guess explained, security cameras were not operating properly at the time, with the museum having put in a work order for repair the day before the incident - but he asserted that the attack was racially motivated. “If we’re honest about it, this is a very racist town,” he said. “This town itself has some serious issues. We’re demographically diverse, but we remain segregated.”

For his part, Heyward said that he was disappointed to learn the work had been attacked, but was more interested in what that act revealed. “Art has long been a space where social tensions become visible, and moments like this raise important questions about why certain images, narratives and perspectives provoke strong reactions,” he said. “The physical object was harmed, but the ideas at the center of the work remain intact.”

The museum initially removed the painting from public view to have it repaired, but they later decided to continue displaying the work in its damaged state. “I was just reminded of Emmett Till’s mother saying, I want an open casket,” Guess said. “We want people to know that this happens here.” #ArtDamaged

Albrecht Dürer "Mater Dolarosa" / sulfuric acid

In April 1988, this oil-on-panel painting, centerpiece of Dürer's "Seven Sorrows Polyptych" (ca. 1500), was damaged while on view at Munich’s Alte Pinakothek.

The work was one of three Dürer pieces targeted in a single day by the serial vandal Hans-Joachim Bohlmann, who ranks as one of the single most prolific (and destructive) art vandals in history.

In this case, he doused three works sulfuric acid, including Lamentation for Christ (1500) and Paumgartner Altar (1503). The resulting damage was estimated at €35 million.

The acid destroyed roughly 70% of the works' surfaces, burning through the paint layer and deeply into the wood panel. The pieces required exhaustive and painstaking conservation, undertaken over 21 years before the fully restored painting was returned to public display in July 2011. #artdamaged

Artemisia Gentileschi "Mary Magdalen" (c. 1620) / blade

In April 2026, a fragmented canvas by Artemisia Gentileschi was put on sale by Vienna’s Dorotheum auction house. One of several iterations completed by the Italian Baroque painter, this version of "St. Mary Magdalen" is notable for having had a large portion of the canvas cut away.

The canvas was uncovered in 2011 after years spent rolled up in the cellar of a private collector in Germany; through infrared examinations of the work's pigments and evolution, it was confirmed to be an autograph replica of Gentileschi's best-known version of the piece, which hangs in the collection of the Palatine Gallery in Palazzo Pitti, Florence. However, in this case, the head of the work's subject had been cut out of the canvas under circumstances that remain unclear, although Dorotheum suggests it was probably linked to "the chaos and looting of postwar Berlin."

In describing the piece, the auction house argues that its impaired state should ultimately be seen as a virtue: "The fact that this painting is damaged should not diminish its significance within the artist's oeuvre. It is highly unusual for a work of art of this importance to come to auction with the central feature, in this case the head of the saint, summarily removed. More often it is the fragment itself which has been removed from a larger, damaged work which appears on the market. In the absence of the missing part of this painting, it could be argued that the very loss it has suffered imbues the painting with a dramatic sense of intensity, evoking a visceral response almost akin to the reaction experienced with certain contemporary works of art."

Buckminster Fuller "Fly's Eye Dome" / snow

In February 2026, this fiberglass outdoor sculpture was destroyed while on view at Long Island’s LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton.

The work collapsed under the weight of snow brought on by a historic blizzard that struck the East Coast. The piece is one of only five existing versions of Fuller’s original 1965 modular design, which took its cues from the structure of a fly's eye and was intended to serve as a self-sustaining dwelling that could be cheaply mass-produced and easily transported.

The LongHouse Reserve is currently working with its insurance company to explore their options for rebuilding or replacing the work; it has also launched a dedicated fundraising campaign to help cover the potential costs.

Nick Dwyer, numerous works from "Shadow Searching: ChatGPT Psychosis" / eaten by fellow student

In January 2025, an estimated 57 works from a set of 160 images were destroyed while on view at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The work in question was by an MFA student named Nick Dwyer, who had leveraged ChatGPT to generate a series of images that “explores identity, character narrative creation and crafting false memories of relationships in an interactive role digitally crafted before, during and after a state of AI psychosis.” (Dwyer has said that that he himself experienced this condition – defined by the Cognitive Behavior Institute as “individuals experiencing psychosis-like episodes after deep engagement with chatbots” – after working with AI for several years, and had intended his work to call attention to the dangers of this rapidly evolving technology.) The resulting images were printed out in a polaroid-style format and pinned to the university's art gallery.

However, on January 13, an undergraduate student named Graham Granger entered the exhibition, walked up to Dwyer's work, and began tearing pieces from the wall and chewing them before spitting them out - or, at various points, swallowing the remains.

Granger, who was detained on site, later told authorities it had been an act of protest against the use of AI in art.

As for Dwyer, he later told local press: “When you make art, you become vulnerable and so the artwork is vulnerable and that’s something that makes it seem more alive or more real or in the moment."

Multiples works by Mariia Kulykivska / vandal

In December 2025, multiple works by the Ukranian artist Mariia Kulykivska were damaged while on view at a waterfront outside the Ukraine House in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The sculptures were part of an open-air installation of works from the artist's new sculpture series, "After Death Comes Life," the latest chapter in her ongoing project "My Body Is a Battlefield. Copenhagen." Exploring themes of war, vulnerability, and the bodily experiences of Ukranian women, the series features life-size figurative sculptures cast from the artist’s own pregnant body. The works contain elements like bullet casings, fragments of mines, and dried flowers from Ukrainian battlefields and fields, all intended as symbols of death and rebirth united a single form.

During daylight hours on December 22, an individual attacked several of the statues, toppling them from their pedestals onto the ground. Several figures were decapitated upon impact. Although the event was captured on surveillance video, the attacker remains unidentified.

Upon learning of the incident, Kulykivska noted that similar acts of violence against her artworks have occurred in the past - namely, in 2014, when militants destroyed her sculptures at the Isolation Contemporary Art Center in Donetsk. "This isn't just vandalism," she said. "It's a repeated act of systemic violence."

Chen Sung-chih "Inverted Syntax – 16" / cleaner

In November 2025, this work was damaged while on view at the Keelung Museum of Art in Taiwan.

The work features a dust-covered mirror on a plain wooden board with mesh fabric lining the edges. The smudged reflection in the mirror was meant to symbolize "the imagery and cultural consciousness of the middle class" - but a volunteer cleaner, thinking the mirror was simply dusty, proceeded to wipe it down with toilet paper, removing 40 years' worth of buildup.

Keelung’s Culture and Tourism Bureau issued a statement saying that it had apologized to the artist — but they may still be held responsible for providing compensation for the damage. The work, meanwhile, was deemed beyond restoration.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres "The Princesse de Broglie" & Girolamo dai Libri “Madonna and Child with Saints” // water

In November 2025, these works were damaged while on view at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

A 19-year-old Texan named Joshua Vavrin hurled water at the renowned centuries-old paintings and ripped two historic tapestries off the wall in what law enforcement called "a bizarre tantrum."

The teenager, who appeared to be under the influence of an “unknown substance," was turned over to authorities by his mother and charged with criminal mischief. Met officials have said that no permanent damage was done to any of the affected artworks.

José Garnelo "First Tribute to Christopher Columbus"/ paint

In October 2025, this 1892 painting was attacked while on view at the Naval Museum in Madrid, Spain.

Two activists from the civil disobedience movement Futuro Vegetal threw biodegradable red paint at the work in an act of protest against the celebration of National Day, which they say symbolizes only "dispossession and collective suffering" for Indigenous peoples. According to a statement later from the climate group, the activists also carried a banner reading: "October 12, nothing to celebrate. Ecosocial justice."

The two activists were arrested on site; it's still unclear if or how badly the painting was damaged.

(Thanks to Julio Garay Terrazas for the heads up!)

Johannes Vermeer "Young Woman Seated at a Virginal" / blade

In March 1968, this 1670-72 portrait was damaged while on view at the National Gallery in London. An unidentified individual used a blade - likely a razor - and attempted to remove the figure's head from the canvas, carving a circle roughly 10cm in diameter.

Strangely enough, it does appear that there was a gallery attendant on duty at the time of the incident - but unfortunately, they could only see ten of the 25 paintings on view in the gallery, as the works were displayed in bays and the attendants remained seated in place. In fact, the damaged artwork remained on view for several hours and was seen by numerous visitors before one eventually alerted museum staff to what had occurred. The painting was quickly brought to the museum's conservation studio, relined, and placed back on public view within three weeks of the attack - the canvas now reinforced with perspex.

Because there were no witnesses to the attack, which occurred before recorded CCTV facilities were available, the vandal was never identified and their motivation remains unknown, as does their reason for not completing the act - although it's been suggested that because Vermeer had been relined only three years earlier, the resulting extra thickness may have made it more difficult for the vandal to fully cut through the canvas.

(Credit to The Art Newspaper for publishing these photos for the first time.)

Anton Domenico Gabbiani "Portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici Grand Prince of Tuscany" / selfie

In June 2025, this 17th-century oil painting was damaged while on view at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Reports say an unidentified museum visitor ("an Italian of about 40 years old") tried to take a selfie with the work but leaned too far, losing his balance and sending elbow through the canvas.

The gallery's director quickly issued a statement, saying that he wanted to set " very precise limits, preventing behaviors that are not compatible with the sense of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage." He added: "The problem of visitors who come to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media is rampant."

Following the incident, museum officials reported that the damage was "minor"; it remains to be seen what a potential restoration might look like.

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