Costs rack up as 'well-meaning' vandals hit Fort Collins' famous Campbell's soup can

If it hadn't been the very reason I was visiting Lynn Boland's office Thursday morning, I would have been surprised to see the giant can opener sitting on a nearby desk.

Made of some sort of thick cardboard or foam and covered in aluminum foil, the contraption was just over 7 feet long, around 3 feet wide and "solid," yet "surprisingly lightweight," Boland said, wrestling the opener so I could see it at its full height.

In fact, if Boland — the director and chief curator at Colorado State University's Gregory Allicar Museum of Art — had seen the piece on its own, "I would have been impressed."

The can opener, however, had been found earlier this month atop CSU's Campbell's soup can, a towering replica made for Andy Warhol's 1981 visit to the school and later put on public display outside of the University Center for the Arts.

While its creator appears to be well intentioned — Boland surmised the mysterious vandal placed the opener on the can as a nod to Warhol's Aug. 6 birthday — the move marked the latest in a string of vandalism incidents that have damaged the beloved can.

The sculpture has been egged, tagged with graffiti and vandalized in other ways over its 16 years outside the UCA. Its latest spate of incidents date back to February 2023, when vandals wrote on it in green marker and adhered paper to it in two separate incidents, according to Suzanne Hale, the registrar and collections manager at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art.

In October 2023, the can was once again written on in green marker. This February, more paper with random words — "girls," "boys," "dogs" — drawn on it were stuck to the piece with adhesive.

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"As vandalism goes, it wasn’t the most atrocious," Boland said, referring to the incidents with paper and adhesive.

However, when scrubbing off the adhesive, some of the sculpture's special anti-graffiti protective coating came with it. The can opener prank also caused some additional small scratches near the top of the piece, Boland said.

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The Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, which maintains and cares for the can as part of its collection, now plans to pay around $1,000 to have the protective coating removed and reapplied.

"Like everything else, the costs of this stuff have really gone up. When I started, we were able to do this for a few hundred dollars and do it every few years," said Boland, who has been at the museum for seven years.

While regular upkeep and larger restorations of the sculpture are expected and planned for, vandalism unnecessarily eats into the museum's budget, Boland said.

"We’re operating with a very small staff for the ambitious programming that we undertake, and we have a very limited budget," Boland said, noting that the majority of the museum's funding comes from private sources and "is often hand to mouth."

"So if I have an unexpected four-figure expense that comes along, that usually means that we have to pull from some other project’s budget," Boland added.

As a good rule of thumb, Boland recommends not touching a public sculpture unless it is obviously meant to be interacted with. In the case of the Campbell's soup can, a small sign fixed to its concrete base asks people to keep off the sculpture.

While Boland has never witnessed an incident where someone caused intentional damage to the can, it's not uncommon to find shoe prints up its side from people trying to climb it. One time, Boland recalled wincing as a passerby leaned against the can for a photo with car keys in her hand.

Still, the museum is proud to be an on-the-ground steward to public art pieces like the can, Boland said.

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"To have works that are appropriate for public display is exciting. It signals that there is more great art to see inside, but also gives people a chance to interact with art in their daily lives," Boland said.

"We love that people love the soup can. We love it, too.”

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Costs rack up as 'well-meaning' vandals hit Fort Collins' famous Campbell's soup can