A Newman Beyond Repair

In 1986, a 31-year-old man used a box cutter to slash Barnett Newman’s “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III” in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. One of the main arguments his lawyer made in his defense was that the painting was a cultural provocation, and this provocation called for a reaction and got one. And that’s just the beginning of the tumultuous story of this painting.