http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx? ... &catid=339
LOVELAND - Witnesses say a woman used an 18-inch crowbar to break a piece of Plexiglas inside a museum and destroy a controversial piece of artwork depicting Jesus on Wednesday afternoon.
A man who was inside of the Loveland Museum/Gallery says he saw the woman looking at the artwork by California artist Enrique Chagoya around 4 p.m.
The City of Loveland has identified the woman as 56-year-old Kathleen Folden , a truck driver from Kalispell, Mont.
The piece of artwork that has caused the controversy is called "The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals." A part of the painting shows a man who appears to be Jesus Christ engaging in a sex act with a man. Many have called it "smut" and asked that it be removed. Supporters say it speaks about the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal.
Mark Michaels, an art dealer, says he saw Folden break the glass. He says she then grabbed the artwork and he tried to stop her.
"We were just coming in and were standing at the door and I heard a large - like a thump, and somebody yelled, 'Oh no!' And I looked up and I saw this lady with a nail-puller-type crowbar slamming the Plexiglas case several times until she broke it. And I ran over there and by the time I got there she had reached in and grabbed the print and was ripping it up so I pulled her away from the print and put her in the corner," Michaels said, "and then the police came."
Michaels says Folden was screaming "How can you desecrate my lord?" as she broke into the case.
Michaels says the woman destroyed the lithograph.
"I just took her away from the case. I didn't know she'd gotten the print already. She was ripping up the paper when I was holding her," he said.
Loveland Police responded to the museum and the woman was taken into custody.
Sgt. Jan Burreson with the Loveland Police Department says the woman threw the lithograph on the floor after ripping it up.
"I've been here 16 years and never heard of [anything like this]," Burreson said. "We do have our fair share of controversies, but nothing that's gone this far."
A spokesperson for the City of Loveland says Folden cut herself when she broke into the display.
"It's a very unfortunate incident," Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez said. "There is no place in our city for behavior like this."
Folden is in custody on a charge of criminal mischief, a felony. If she is convicted, the fines range from $1,000 to $2,000.
Of particular note is this piece of the article a little later:
Tax money did not go toward funding the exhibit because the museum received it for free.
Some of our conservatives will doubtless make the typical argument that "public museums publicly funded ought not display this type of imagery". So it ought to be noted for posterity that this exhibit was not publicly funded.
