Artist arrested in ‘Fountain’ attack

A 76-year-old performance artist was arrested after attacking Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” with a hammer, police said.

Duchamp’s 1917 piece -- an ordinary white, porcelain urinal that’s been called one of the most influential works of Modern art -- was slightly chipped in the attack at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the museum said Thursday. It was removed from the exhibit for repair.

The suspect, a Provence resident whose identity was not released, already vandalized the work in 1993 -- urinating into the piece when it was on display in Nimes, police said. During questioning, the man claimed his hammer attack on Wednesday was performance art that might have pleased Dada artists.

A 2004 poll of 500 arts figures ranked “Fountain” as the most influential work of Modern art, ahead of Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” Andy Warhol’s screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and “Guernica,” Picasso’s depiction of war’s devastation.