DALLAS — Last month, vandals broke in and butchered a Dallas art gallery, resulting in thousands of dollars worth of damage.
The criminal activity threatened to cancel a new showing at CorinthPark, a warehouse filled with graffiti art.
But the owners of the gallery decided to turn the tables on the vandals, who splashed murals with paint and then ransacked the studio, tearing out electrical boxes and even the toilets — so they could fill the sewer lines with concrete.
"This is an extreme property crime," said exhibit co-curator Herschel Weisfeld. "We're talking about nearly $50,000 worth of property damage done to this building."
Weisfeld thinks it's personal; the intruders struck just weeks before a big exhibit.
But instead of canceling the show that was scheduled to open this weekend, the 49-year-old got creative, and turned the work of the criminals into the artwork.
"Art comes in so many forms, it doesn't have to just be on a canvas," Weisfeld explained.
The tools of the vandals, spray cans of paint, went on display.
So did the evidence, including police fingerprint dust and all. Tags show the cost of the damage.
"That makes the story much better, it really does," said gallery visitor Laura McEvoy. "Just gives it a whole new perspective to what you're looking at."
The exhibition, which has now been retitled "Art Crime Scene," is getting Weisfeld some unexpected attention.
"Perhaps a bad situation that was supposed to pull us down has, in fact, brought us up further than we could have imagined," he said. "Isn't that the beauty?"
E-mail jbetz@wfaa.com
