Non-expulsion hard to stomach

A student at the Ontario College of Art and Design who deliberately vomited on two museum paintings because he found them to be "stale, lifeless crusts" will not face expulsion or suspension from his school.

The college's student affairs committee decided that although they find Jubal Brown's actions "reprehensible in the extreme", the responsibility lay with him and not with his college.

This decision did not go down well with the Art Gallery of Ontario, where a work by Raoul Dufy was vomited on with a stream of red last May. The 22-year-old student spewed blue on a Mondrian at New York's Museum of Modern Art in November.

"We find OCAD's unwillingness to expel or at the very least suspend Mr Brown to be an abdication of its responsibility as Canada's foremost art school," said AGO director Maxwell Anderson.

But college representative Jack Kado said OCAD could not go outside of its jurisdiction. The matter should be settled in a court of law, he said. The Toronto incident is under police investigation. MoMA has not taken action but is seeking legal advice.

Mr Brown ,who wears a lip ring, says he has been supported by colleagues and appreciates the media circus. He is even thinking of quitting school to work full-time at his art. "One can only hope that Jubal Brown enjoys his 15 minutes: it's about to end," said the Toronto Star's art critic.