Pierre Pinoncelli (15 April 1929 – 9 October 2021) was a French
performance artist
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
, best known for damaging two of the eight copies of ''
Fountain
A fountain, from the Latin "fons" ( genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect.
Fountains were o ...
'' by
Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...
with a hammer, as a statement that the work had lost its provocative value. The most recent attack happened on 4 January 2006 at
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
in Paris and the first at an exhibition in
Nîmes
Nîmes ( , ; ; Latin: ''Nemausus'') is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Gard Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region of Southern France. Located between the Med ...
on 25 August 1993, where he also urinated into it before using the hammer.
Pinoncelli was born in Saint-Étienne, Loire, France, in April 1929.
He also threw a bottle of red ink over
André Malraux
Georges André Malraux ( ; ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (''Man's Fate'') (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed ...
, the French minister of culture at the time; robbed a bank in
Nice
Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionFARC guerillas holding the French-Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt hostage.
Pinoncelli died on 9 October 2021, at the age of 92.Pierre Pinoncelli, peintre et familier des happenings, est mort /ref>