The culprit was
caught when she went back to the museum.
Anna Sansom, May 2,
2022
When Catalan artist
Oriol Vilanova exhibited a jacket filled with postcards visitors could remove
and examine at the Musée Picasso in Paris, little did he imagine that one
person would take the liberty a step too far. But in late March, a 72-year-old
woman took the blue work jacket, which had been hanging on a wall, home with
her. According to French daily Le Parisien, she then had it altered at the
tailor’s so it would fit.
Upon returning to
the museum to revisit the show a few days later, the woman—who had been
captured on surveillance camera putting the jacket into her bag—was arrested by
the police, who happened to be at the museum looking for evidence.
While in custody,
the retiree—who was reportedly “passionate” about art, according to Le
Parisien—immediately confessed to stealing the jacket but claimed not to have
realized it was an artwork. Police searched her home, where they found it with
shortened sleeves.
After a few hours
of interrogation, the public prosecutor’s office let the woman off with a
warning and dropped the case. According to Le Parisien, the woman had been
placed under guardianship.
Vilanova’s artwork
belongs to his “Old Masters” series (2017–21), which involved filling the
pockets of a blue jacket with postcards depicting artworks by major figures in
art history. At the Musée Picasso, the jacket was filled with postcards
purchased at flea markets and museum shops, all with images of Picasso’s work.
The jacket appeared next to a black-and-white photograph of Picasso in his
studio and was presented in “Picasso à l’image” (through February 12, 2023), a
thematic exhibition of the museum’s collection with archival photographs,
films, and documentaries.
“When the museum
told me the work had been stolen, I was surprised, but it was impossible to
envisage the story that followed,” Vilanova told Artnet News.
But Vilanova
disputes this. “I’ve always exhibited this artwork in the same way in other
museums without any problem [as there were] security guards that guaranteed its
safety,” he told Artnet News. “Other museums insured the artwork. If I had been
aware of the risk of theft [at the Musée Picasso], I would never have exhibited
it,” he said, adding that 150 postcards were also destroyed by the culprit.
The theft raises
questions about the Musée Picasso’s security system. However, the museum told
Artnet News it “proposed to the artist to secure [the jacket] on a coat-hanging
system which would have prevented it from being unhooked off the wall.
“This option was
not chosen by the artist because the public could not have manipulated the work
easily. He wanted people to be able to handle not just the postcards, but the
jacket too.”
Due to the nature
of Vilanova’s piece, it was “not insurable for the risk of theft,” a point
stated in its loan agreement with the artist, the museum said. “The artist was
aware of the risk of the object being stolen.”
Based in Brussels,
Vilanova describes his method of working as a “flea market studio practice.”
His installations of chromatically ordered postcards, intended as a reflection
on mass reproduction, have been exhibited internationally. Work from his “Old
Masters” series had also been shown at the Albright Knox Art Gallery in
Buffalo, as well as in Monaco and Belgium, where it was always free from harm.
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