Intricate Japanese pumpkin sculpture worth £600,000 ‘smashed by hapless selfie-taker’ who accidentally trod on it just two days after exhibition opens
The show had to close after the luminous vegetable was damaged when a visitor fell onto it
AN exquisite pumpkin sculpture crafted by a Japanese artist and worth £600,000 was smashed by a hapless visitor believed to have been taking a selfie.
The glowing yellow and black artwork was broken after someone fell over onto it while visiting Yayoi Kusama's exhibition Infinity Mirrors at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC.
The exhibition titled "Infinity Mirrored Room — All the Eternal Love I have for the Pumpkins” was forced to close for three days after the calamity.
The pumpkin was one of more than 60 sculptures on the floor of the mirrored room when the disaster happened on Saturday.
The incredible immersive sculpture has been painstakingly crafted out of wood, plastic, acrylic, mirrors and LED lights.
Japanese artist Kusama's work regularly focuses on pumpkins as her family grew and sold their seeds for a living when she was growing up.
Speaking to The , she said: "Pumpkins have been a great comfort to me since my childhood: they speak to me of the joy of living.
“They are humble and amusing at the same time and I have and always will celebrate them in my art.”
Museum spokeswoman Alison Peck told the the visitor, who was alone in the room, “took an accidental misstep” from a small platform, damaging one of the pumpkin sculptures.
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Journalist Kriston Capps said on Twitter he had been told by two people present that the viewer was taking a selfie.
The show has now reopened and a replacement pumpkin is being created.
Peck told “We take great care of our artwork, and also place a great deal of trust in our visitors, providing clear instructions at the entry for each room.
"When the room reopens, it will have increased security and visitor services staff.”
Kusama's exhibition features six rooms with mirrored interiors creating infinite reflections of themselves, and has become the most popular in the museum's history since opening last Thursday, reports the .
It comes after a 12-year-old boy on a school trip tripped over and broke his fall with a 350-year-old painting worth £1.2million.
The child was visiting a gallery in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, when he lost his balance and punched a fist-sized hole into the painting Flowers by Italian artist Paolo Porpora.
Luckily the gallery decided not to ask his family to pay for the restoration of the painting.
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