Crime among the rich or revolutionary act of climate awareness activism? On the evening of March 31, an unnamed 66-year-old woman allegedly drove her 2018 Rolls-Royce Dawn into the backyard of prominent art collector and hedge fund manager Steven Tananbaum and beachfront property of his wife Lisa Tananbaum in Palm Beach, Florida. CCTV footage captured the incident, showing the driver hitting a Damien Hirst sculpture set up in the Tananbaums’ courtyard on a low pedestal before crashing into an ornate landscaped fence and eventually landing the bumper first in the sand from a five-foot drop. the rear dike of the property.
The Tananbaums confirmed in the police statement that Hirst’s sculpture, titled “Sphinx” (2017), was valued at $3 million. The police report also said there was $10,000 damage to the seawall and $50 damage to the landscape fence and scuff marks on the driveway.
The painted bronze sculpture, included in the artist’s exhibition Treasures from the Wreck of the Incredible — a sculptural series of discovery of falsified shipwrecks which Hyperallergic called “the most expensive art flop in living memory” – appeared to have been lost underwater for centuries with corals, barnacles and other marine life attached to it. While footage from the Palm Beach Police Department shows the statue had been dislodged from its base, the Tananbaums say the vehicle caused extensive damage.
The news comes just months after a woman smashed a “Balloon Dog” sculpture by Jeff Koons at an art fair in Miami, a much more modest work valued at $42,000.
According Palm Beach Daily News, no one was injured in the incident and the driver did not appear to be intoxicated, but she had no recollection of the events leading up to the crash. Palm Beach police officers and the fire crew responding to the scene brought the woman to St. Mary’s Medical Center for a medical evaluation after the crash. Remarkably, there was only about $2,000 damage to the Rolls-Royce.
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