The Kiss (Not Klimt's)

Who could forget Rindy Sam, the Cambodian woman who planted her brightly glossed lips on a panel of Cy Twombly's pure white Phaedrus triptych at the Collection Lambert in Avignon this past summer? She claimed that is was an "act of love," but that didn't spare her from being sentenced in November to perform 100 hours of community service and pay €1,000 to the painting's owner (Yvon Lambert, the gallerist whose art is displayed in the Avignon gallery), €500 to the Collection Lambert, and €1 to Twombly.

Nor has her claim of good intentions found any traction with the Collection Lambert. The gallery mounted a response to Sam's "vulgar" act at the end of October (up through mid-January) titled I Don't Kiss. The exhibition is made up of works intended to express outrage at the kiss and includes Bertrand Lavier's interpretation of Salvador Dali's red lips-shaped couch (Lavier has placed the lips on top of a freezer), Douglas Gordon's human skull marked with the impression of his own lips, painted in the exact shade as were Twombly's aggressor, and, alas, the restored triptych.

The other paintings (large, horizontal canvases filled with dripping blossoms) that were on view with the triptych this summer can now be seen at Gagosian's 21st Street gallery, where they are watched over by suited security guards. And they mean business: On Saturday afternoon, one of the guards turned away a woman with a dog on a leash. Lest one of the works get a sloppy lick?

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2007, © Cy Twombly, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2007, © Cy Twombly, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery