January 6th 2006, he did it again. The artist and performer known as Pinoncelli, now 77, successfully attacked the Duchamp Fountain (urinal) with a hammer, while on display at the immense Dada exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. This former manager of a flower seeds factory in south east France still manages to bring on uneasiness in certain people. As a joke, I told Laurent Lebon, Pompidou Center’s curator of the Dada show, that Pinoncelli had already bought his plane ticket to Washington, where the same Dada will be on view from February 19th. He was stunned and not amused. Laurent Lebon actually received a long threatening letter from Pinoncelli as the exhibition opened in Paris: considering it as an insult not to be mentioned next to Duchamp as co-author of the Fountain exhibited (in reference to a performance he conducted in 1993 when he urinated into the piece and attacked it with a hammer, while it was on display in Nimes, in southern France) and he made promise of action (multiple). Lebon asked for heavy weight security bouncers to stand by the Fountain, as he wanted it exhibited without a papal-like glass cage. Pinoncelli got through.

Pierre Doze: You have been hit a lot harder this time around—3 months probation and a fine of 200,000 Euros ($260,000).

Pierre Pinoncelli: It’s heresy. You can’t fix a Ready Made. That’s a complete negation of Duchamp’s principles! Yet they fixed it and displayed it, and made no mention of the its history or my action. I don’t consider vandalism to be my specialty. I don’t have an inherent interest in destruction. Yet, tranquility is not much my taste either. I had the choice of spending the last of my days peacefully or actively. I chose the option of activity, the heroic character. Performance evokes childhood to me. I decided not to say anything to my wife or children. After my previous attack on the Fountain, I had promised that that would be the last. They are all very angry. This time is one time too many. Seen from the outside, this can all seem very funny. Yet at home, even after my first action, it was a disaster: The house was mortgaged, provisional prosecution measures taken; constant visits from bailiffs ... at that time, only your kids see you as Zorro. Now for the first time in my life I have a criminal record. Even back when I held up a bank, they didn’t do this to me.

PD: You have moved from an artist to news item. Are you not concerned that this Fountain will be your coffin, and that your name will be no more than an accessory to Duchamp’s work.

PP: Actually, I have done many different things in performance and painting. In 67, I was in NY for the opening of an Yves Klein exhibition at the Jewish Museum. I was disguised as a blue man, which made the headlines of the Village Voice. This is when I met Duchamp. I told him of my plan to destroy the urinal. He laughed and encouraged me.

PD: Do you see that as regression?

PP: That this Institutional Museum stays silent as to the history of this piece, that’s pretty lame. I am quite aware that the stakes are much higher. Dada, Duchamp, and the Pompidou Center, that’s quite high. I had killed the urinal. It was nothing more than a serialized object, without a past, no scars, all smooth. I managed to get away with it the first time in 93, by making the insurance company that was after me understand that you can’t go after an artist. This time, they didn’t miss their shot. My lawyer is more or less optimistic. I’m a serial killer every 13 years. I’m going to have to pay high.