Germany: woman argues she didn’t damage ‘crossword’ art work

BERLIN (AP) - A lawyer for an elderly woman who filled in spaces on a piece of art depicting part of a crossword at a German museum says she contends that she was completing the piece, not damaging it.

Officials at Nuremberg’s Neues Museum filed a criminal complaint after the 90-year-old, who hasn’t been identified, last month filled in blank spaces with a ballpoint pen on avant-garde artist Arthur Koepcke’s 1965 work, “Reading-work-piece.” She apparently took literally the phrase “Insert Words” at the edge of the picture.

Lawyer Heinz-Harro Salloch said Wednesday the woman argued she hadn’t damaged the piece “but only completed it as the artist intended,” news agency dpa reported.

She told police the picture even gained in value, he added.