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By: Michael de Yoanna

Category: Elevated Voices

Posted: October 7, 2010 9:49 AM

A Crowbar-Wielding Woman Attacks Enrique Chagoya's Controversial Artwork in Loveland

After facing uproar from Christians offended by a lithograph by Enrique Chagoya entitled The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals, attendance at Loveland’s Museum/Gallery rose dramatically. But so did threats, reports the Loveland Connection. On Wednesday, the ire erupted when a woman identified as Kathleen Folden, a 56-year-old truck driver from Kalispell, Montana, allegedly defiled the art after cracking through a Plexiglas shield with a crowbar. 

Art dealer Mark Michael tells 9News he tried to stop Folden, but "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." Folden allegedly said, "How can you desecrate my Lord?" She has been arrested on felony mischief, a charge that carries a fine of up to $2,000.

Chagoya, speaking from his home in California, says what was destroyed was a limited-run print—one of 30 such images. "My work is about critiquing institutions and politics," Chagoya explains. "I wasn't trying to portray Christ; it's a collage of cutouts from different books." 

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