There is a board game called Clue: The Great Museum Caper. It is not new. It was made in the 90’s. In it, players take turns as the thief, remaining invisible as they move around the low relief playing area, snatching miniature Mondrians and Rembrandts. The thief becomes visible if another player wanders into the line of sight. The thief attempts to make a getaway through locked windows with as many paintings as he can collect before getting pinned by the other players. This game emphasizes the craftiness of the art thief and the dopey good nature of a sleuth. If you’ve seen the Pink Panther movies and watched 80’s TV, the images of sleek, black-clad thieves slipping through skylights, dangling from grappling hooks and avoiding alarm-triggering laser beams to snatch valuables are not difficult to visualize. The images that are recalled often glamorize theft and the cleverness of the crooks.
The thieves who swiped the Munch’s in Oslo two weeks ago were not of the polished, “Mission Impossible” variety, as they held museum guards at gunpoint and ripped the paintings from the wall.
Theft is a concern of many gallery directors. Carolyn Eyler, director of the art galleries at USM said, “I hold my breath every time we hang a show.”
Looking at other examples of art theft worldwide, we see some of the same tactics that are used in television employed to steal artwork. In April 2003, an artwork by Salvador Dali was stolen from the Riker’s Island Correctional Facility in New York City during a fire drill and replaced with a forgery. In 2002, thieves dug an 80-foot tunnel into the National Fine Arts Museum in Asuncion, Paraguay, escaping with a million dollars worth of paintings. This is serious business. Art theft and black market art is a specialized affair that ranks as the fourth largest international criminal enterprise, behind drugs, money laundering and weapons, according to Interpol, which can be pretty handy when it comes to tracking art thieves. You already knew this if you’ve ever played “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?”
Historically, the most significant catalyst for art theft is war. Conquering armies have claimed and redistributed artifacts of value since war began. World War II brought violence and destruction on a scale previously unseen. The confiscation by the Nazis of tens of thousands of artworks created by Jewish artists prompted the drafting of the “Convention for the Protections of cultural Property in the Even of Armed Conflict” in 1954. This was created to protect art, just as the Geneva Convention was created to protect civilians.
Fast forward to 2003, when professional thieves, working under the camouflage created by the invasion of Baghdad by U.S. forces, looted the Iraq National Museum and other museums, libraries and archaeological sites, making off with over 12,000 artifacts. Scholars worldwide have demanded that the authorities in Baghdad hold the thieves responsible according to the rules laid out in the aforementioned convention. Authorities caught an American scholar trying to smuggle pilfered statues into the States earlier this summer.
War can not only redistribute art but also destroy it. Original paintings by Joan Miro and Roy Lichtenstein were lost in the World Trade Center disaster in 2001. Consider the ceremonial bells confiscated from Zen temples in Japan by the Japanese army to be melted down for submarine propellers.
It is known that prized objects will be stolen, protected and stolen again and again. The value of an art object has a dual identity, one is a dollar figure and one is a value that exists in the mind. Art thieves who steal from desire justify their thefts with reasons from high-mindedness to ridiculousness. Some art thief connoisseurs believe that they will appreciate the piece more than their victim, as in an unsolved case involving a Pablo Picasso drawing stolen from a yacht in Miami this August, possibly related to a feud between rival collectors. High values stimulate greed, which stimulates theft. A seventeenth century cello built by Antonio Stradivari and estimated to be worth $3.5 million was stolen from the home of a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in April of this year. The thief was unable to sell the cello as police closed in and the cello was discovered leaning against a dumpster near a Korean restaurant in the city. Incidentally, Los Angeles is the only city in the nation that has an entire police unit dedicated to an art theft beat.
In 1973, Richard Nixon gave “goodwill” gifts of moon rocks encased in clear acrylic to 135 nations. Most of these rocks have been stolen, including the rock given to Malta, which was swiped last June. The moon seems to be a highly prized collectable. The Christian Science Monitor reported that in 2002, some NASA student interns stole a 600-pound safe containing 3.5 ounces of moon rocks worth millions of dollars and tried to sell them on eBay. Greed and possessiveness could lead to the dismantling of the moon into saleable parts.
One may condemn thug thieves, like the ones who stole the Munch paintings in Oslo two weeks ago, but who brings a better face to theft than Pablo Picasso? Picasso was arrested in 1911 as a suspect in the abduction of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in Paris. He had admittedly stolen busts from the museum in the past. He was cleared of the Mona Lisa related charges.
Art theft also comes in the form of fanatical obsessions and impulsiveness. A New Hampshire man was arrested last year after stealing a painting of a cat drinking out of a toilet from the bathroom of a veterinary clinic. There are framed artworks hanging unguarded in almost every restaurant bathroom in the country. There are thefts of art by artists, as in the Picasso example and some people would argue that all artists are thieves. A filmmaker in New York City produces films that are home video films of other people’s films. An anonymous artist in Portland boasts that he has stolen dozens of rubber filters from the urinals of public bathrooms with the intent of making art from them. A Thomas Paquette painting stolen from a show at Colby College in 2001 was likely taken because the thief liked the painting. Paquette, quoted in the Morning Sentinel in ’01, said, “it’s somewhat of a compliment for someone to risk going to jail for one of my paintings.” The Jessica Gandalf painting swiped from the Aucocisco Gallery in Portland last year also seems to have been taken for selfish reasons.
Infringement of art copyrights, such as downloading pirated music, illegally dubbing VHS tapes or filming other people’s films and crediting yourself for the film are not exactly art theft. These copyright violations have not removed the object from the possession of the artist or owner. There is debate on this, but there could be philosophical debate about who owns what and what ownership is. If John Lennon were alive, would he be an advocate for Napster?
Art theft is deplorable, weird and exotic. Thieves are consumed by envy, greed or instructions from the boss. Art theft can be viewed as a game of vanity, a private war, a violation of culture or a redistribution of it. The Portland Museum of Art and other local galleries do not like the implication that art theft is an exotic game. Directors were reluctant to talk to me about security when they picked up on the notion that I might be advocating theft and devising an escape plan for the next great museum caper. The “greatest” museum caper in the United States remains unsolved to this day. In 1990, thieves stole 12 paintings from the Gardner Museum in Boston. The paintings were valued at over $100 million.
Information in this article came from saztv.com and most of it was stolen.