Who are these lowlife vandals pissing in Duchamp's Fountain? These rat-toothed iconoclasts punching holes in priceless Monets? These destruction breathing thugs dripping ink in Hirst's formaldehyde? What would our Dada's think? Can the act of vandalizing art become a piece of art itself, an unauthorized collaboration? Does urine in the fountain make it even more valuable? Can I employ these notions and not go to jail?

Pierre Pinoncelli, a retired seed merchant and French performance artist has made a career out of these untamed acts : He has hit Duchamp's urinal with a hammer twice. Once this past January (for which he was fined 200,000 euros) and once in 1993, just after he relieved himself into the piece. In 1967, he sprayed the French novelist, and then culture minister, Andr