Iconic, $56 Million Abstract Painting Damaged by Child
That's arguably the moral of the story after a child reportedly damaged a Mark Rothko painting worth a whopping $56 million. The damage happened at the famed Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
According to the BBC, a museum spokesperson said it's considering the "next steps" to repair the American painter's 1960 abstract Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 painting. Those "next steps" includes searching for a conservation expert in the country and abroad. A Dutch outlet reported that the damage occurred during an "unguarded moment."
As far as the painting's damage, a spokesperson told the BBC that the damage is "superficial," and that "small scratches are visible in the unvarnished paint layer in the lower part of the painting."It's worth noting that a conservationist reportedly said that the painting in question is "particularly susceptible to damage." The painting had been hanging in the museum's Depot, which is a publicly accessible storage facility next to the main museum, as part of an exhibition displaying the gallery's favorite collection.
The museum is optimistic that the painting will be on display again, but fixing the damage will be difficult because "Rothko's mixture of pigments and resins and glues were quite complex."
This incident is eerily reminiscent to another Rothko painting that was intentionally damaged in 2012, when a man defaced a 1958 painting with graffiti.
The man apologized for his action, but he was ultimately sentenced to two years in prison. During the trial, prosecutors said it would cost more than $266,000 to repair the damage, and it took conservators 18 months to repair the damage.
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Boston Globe
38 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Iran is holding at least 4 American citizens, rights groups and families say
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NBC Sports
4 hours ago
- NBC Sports
Tony Buzbee responds to Shannon Sharpe's claim that he targets Black men
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That's how it works. Find strong cases, pursue strong cases, settle or try strong cases. Buzbee did that after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, generating more than $500 million for more than 10 thousand clients who pursued claims against BP. 'I guess a bunch of old white men could say I'm targeting them, and a bunch of multinational corporations could say I'm targeting them as well,' Buzbee said. 'I guess you could say I was targeting BP. . . . Well, I probably was targeting BP.' That's how it works. For anyone who represents individuals on a contingency fee. For Buzbee, the Watson case made him a go-to choice for anyone with valid claims against current or former NFL players. Without the Watson cases, there's a good chance the plaintiff in the Sharpe case wouldn't have known Buzbee's name. That also explains Buzbee's publicity-driven style. 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Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
North Korea sent me abroad to be a secret IT worker. My wages funded the regime
Jin-su says over the years he used hundreds of fake IDs to apply for remote IT work with Western companies. It was part of a vast undercover scheme to raise funds for North Korea. Juggling multiple jobs across the US and Europe would make him at least $5,000 (£3,750) a month, he told the BBC in a rare interview. Some colleagues, he said, would earn much more. Before he defected, Jin-su - whose name has been changed to protect his identity - was one of thousands believed to have been sent abroad to China and Russia, or countries in Africa and elsewhere, to take part in the shadowy operation run by secretive North Korea. North Korean IT workers are closely monitored and few have spoken to the media, but Jin-su has provided extensive testimony to the BBC, giving a revealing insight into what daily life is like for those working the scam, and how they operate. His first-hand account confirms much of what has been estimated in UN and cyber security reports. 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Four more North Koreans who allegedly used fraudulent identities to secure remote IT work for a cryptocurrency firm in the US were indicted last month. US woman gets 8-year sentence for stealing identities to give North Koreans jobs Firm hacked after accidentally hiring North Korean cyber criminal Getting the jobs Jin-su was an IT worker for the regime in China for several years before defecting. He and his colleagues would mostly work in teams of 10, he told the BBC. Access to the internet is limited in North Korea, but abroad, these IT workers can operate more easily. They need to disguise their nationality not just because they can get paid more by impersonating Westerners, but due to the extensive international sanctions North Korea is under, primarily in response to its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. This scheme is separate from North Korea's hacking operations which also raise money for the regime. Earlier this year the Lazarus Group - an infamous hacking group understood to be working for North Korea, though they've never admitted to it - is thought to have stolen $1.5bn (£1.1bn) from cryptocurrency firm Bybit. Jin-su spent most of his time trying to secure fraudulent identities which he could use to apply for jobs. He would first pose as Chinese, and contact people in Hungary, Turkey and other countries to ask them to use their identity in exchange for a percentage of his earnings, he told the BBC. "If you put an 'Asian face' on that profile, you'll never get a job." He would then use those borrowed identities to approach people in Western Europe for their identities, which he'd use to apply for jobs in the US and Europe. Jin-su often found success targeting UK citizens. "With a little bit of chat, people in the UK passed on their identities so easily," he said. Listen to BBC Trending: Could your colleague be a North Korean in disguise? IT workers who speak better English sometimes handle the applications process. But jobs on freelancer sites also don't necessarily require face-to-face interviews, and often day-to-day interactions take place on platforms like Slack, making it easier to pretend to be someone you are not. Jin-su told the BBC he mostly targeted the US market, "because the salaries are higher in American companies". He claimed so many IT workers were finding jobs, often companies would unwittingly hire more than one North Korean. "It happens a lot," he said. It's understood that IT workers collect their earnings through networks of facilitators based in the West and China. Last week a US woman was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for crimes connected to assisting North Korean IT workers find jobs and sending them money. The BBC cannot independently verify the specifics of Jin-su's testimony, but through PSCORE, an organisation which advocates for North Korean human rights, we've read testimony from another IT worker who defected that supports Jin-su's claims. The BBC also spoke to a different defector, Hyun-Seung Lee, who met North Koreans working in IT while he was travelling as a businessman for the regime in China. He confirmed they'd had similar experiences. A growing problem The BBC spoke to multiple hiring managers in the cyber security and software development sector who say they've spotted dozens of candidates they suspect are North Korean IT workers during their hiring processes. Rob Henley, co-founder of Ally Security in the US, was recently hiring for a series of remote vacancies at his firm, and believes he interviewed up to 30 North Korean IT workers in the process. "Initially it was like a game to some extent, like trying to figure out who was real and who was fake, but it got pretty annoying pretty quickly," he said. Eventually, he resorted to asking candidates on video calls to show him it was daytime where they were. "We were only hiring candidates from the US for these positions. It should have been at least light outside. But I never saw daylight." Back in March, Dawid Moczadło, co-founder of Vidoc Security Lab based in Poland, shared a video of a remote job interview he conducted where the candidate appeared to be using artificial intelligence software to disguise their face. He said that after speaking to experts, he believed the candidate could be a North Korean IT worker. We contacted the North Korean embassy in London to put the allegations in this story to them. They did not respond. A rare escape route North Korea has been sending its workers abroad for decades to earn the state foreign currency. Up to 100,000 are employed abroad as factory or restaurant workers, mostly in China and Russia. After several years of living in China, Jin-su said the "sense of confinement" over his oppressive working conditions built up. "We weren't allowed to go out and had to stay indoors all the time" he said. "You can't exercise, you can't do what you want." However, North Korean IT workers have more freedom to access Western media when they're abroad, Jin-su said. "You see the real world. When we are abroad, we realise that something is wrong inside North Korea." But despite this, Jin-su claimed few North Korean IT workers thought about escaping like he did. "They just take the money and go back home, very few people would think about defection." Although they only keep a small proportion of what they earn, it's worth a lot in North Korea. Defecting is also hugely risky and difficult. Surveillance in China means most are caught. Those few who do succeed in defecting may never see their families again, and their relatives could face punishment for them leaving. Jin-su is still working in IT now he's defected. He says the skills he honed working for the regime have helped him settle into his new life. Because he isn't working multiple jobs with fake IDs, he earns less than when he worked for the North Korean regime. But because he can keep more of his earnings, overall, he has more money in his own pocket. "I had got used to making money by doing illegal things. But now I work hard and earn the money I deserve." More Weekend Picks North Korea's Benidorm-style resort welcomes first Russian tourists A puff on a joint - then six months of forced rehab in a concrete cell Inside the abandoned homes of Assad's ruthless enforcers Solve the daily Crossword
