Attack of the Vindaloo Vandal

This is our solution to the Vindaloo Vandal from the What is Art? Issue (October 2020)

Henry is desperate to revive his art career. His work is not as good as Fenella’s. He feels jealous and sad that her work is getting more attention than his, but he is also very short of money and desperate to sell some paintings. So, he figures this is a way to kill two birds with one stone – destroy Fenella’s reputation and bump up his credentials as a controversial artist. He hires an actor, his own cousin Percival Minniver, to come to the gallery to stage a protest. He hides a marker pen in the toilet, planning to use the pen to destroy the picture. At 7.15, the protester (Percival) arrives, shouts a bit and lets off the smoke bomb. While smoke fills the room, Henry goes into the broken toilet – he has figured out that the pen will not destroy the picture because it’s wax crayon, but he sees the delivery driver dropping off the takeaway, so he intercepts it. Enters the gallery space unnoticed, empties it over the painting, deposits the empty container under the seat of the passed-out security guard and and goes back to the toilet, emerging at 7.20 to act horrified at the vandalism of his painting.