A 77-year-old Frenchman was in police custody in Paris on Thursday after he attacked the famous urinal that Dada pioneer Marcel Duchamp presented as an art work, a police spokesperson said.
The man, who was not identified, went at what is arguably the world’s most famous bit of porcelain plumbing on Wednesday with a small hammer at the Pompidou Centre, where it is being presented as part of a large Dada exhibition.
The piece, which Duchamp presented in 1917 under the title Fountain, was chipped in several places, a spokesperson at the Pompidou Centre said.
It was immediately removed from exhibition and will be restored.
The man, who identified himself as an artist, had already attacked the piece once before, in the southern French city of Nimes, in 1993. — Sapa-DPA