We brought you a cheeky tale yesterday about Instagrammers making local nature spots hard to preserve, but today, as if by coincidental magic, we move to the world of fine art where “doing it for the gram” might have resulted in the destruction of two pieces, one by Spanish artist Salvador Dali and the other by Francisco Goya.
And, of course, the whole thing happened as a result of selfies gone wrong.
PetaPixel picked up a news report from the Russian agency TASS that detailed an incident at the International Arts Center Main Avenue in Yekaterinburg, Russia involving four young girls on October 27.
Describing the behavior of the group as “inadequate,” TASS goes on to describe the combined display as being destroyed by the group’s actions.
“Goya’s work had its frame and glass broken. As far as Dali’s artwork is concerned, apart from shattered frame and protective glass, it also suffered damage to the picture itself.”
You can watch a video of that here on YouTube.
While the whole thing was tragic, it wasn't bad enough to merit criminal charges. The police are investigating what happened, however, and experts are looking at restoring the artwork. We can imagine that will be expensive.
Social media moments, and selfies in particular, have enjoyed a lot of bad press of late. Yesterday we brought you the story about Instagrammers bringing chaos to once relatively unknown tourist spots but we’ve also told you about all the things that can happen when people take selfies without paying attention to their surroundings. Everything from deaths to destroyed artwork and even research showing how deadly the phenomenon is.
While the press seems voluminous it seems like the warning hasn’t quite gotten out there yet.
What do you think? Are selfies inherently dangerous or is it just one of the many ways that accidents happen in life? Let us know in the comments.
