Remember when the walls of the Pompidou inexplicably lost hold of a Craig Kauffman sculpture, and it fell to pieces on the floor? Voila! Replaced.

That's nothing compared to the total, unprecedented demolition this week of an oil-painted fiberglass and resin sculpture by Carole Feuerman. It was en route to Miami. (Ironically, it was called The Survival of Serena and depicted a woman clinging to an inner tube for safety.)

As Slog tipper Jim notes, the insurance company says it will return to the artist $9,100—a fragment of the $300,000 of the work's estimated value. How will insurance rates for art be affected by the new economy?

^{Serena, not surviving}