Theft and the media

The art project Kunstklappe© and the Collection of Stolen Art got a worldwide media coverage: from cover stories in men’s magazines (?) to reviews in art publications, daily newspapers, radio and TV shows. Imitations of the concept led to the registration of the trademark Kunstklappe©. Here’s a video of a TV report from 2006.

Kunstklappe© and the Collection of Stolen Art

The Mona Lisa is one of the most famous works in art history. Paradoxically, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece first became an art icon as a result of its absence: the headline on the theft in the international gazettes of July 22, 1911 made the enigmatically smiling Gioconda a star over night. The loss, it appears, aroused attention as a deviation from the norm. The same effect resulted when, on the night of the 10th to the 11th May 2003, a golden salt cellar was stolen from the Arthistoric Museum in Vienna. Soon, every child knew of the Saliera, which had previously only been remembered by students of art history as a mannerist work by the exalted Florentine Benvenuto Cellini. The shock over the brazen robbery was all the greater as the museum director said in a first commentary that the loss was valued at about fifty million euros. What, though, is art worth – in abstract and in material terms? How is value created? No doubt the display of an item in the context of a museum raises its significance. The museum or white cube exponent is clearly detached from the everyday situation and visibly defined as extraordinary. Alongside this, there are the exorbitant market prices brought in by individual works at international auctions. Bids in 3-figure-millions take one’s breath away, being almost awe-inspiring, and stand in no logical relationship to the material character of the artwork. It is not surprising that reports of new record highs also awakens the interest of potential wrongdoers. Art theft appears to confirm the supposed value of an object ex negativo, making such thefts a part of the art system and cultural practice. Through its theft, the artwork is removed from the public or private collection, or from appropriation, and gains the status of the sought and the missing. The mass media-spread and multiplied wanted ads are also always manifestations, through the display of the pain of loss, of the symbolical value of the object concerned. The growth in leaps of publicity in the media for the missing object frequently far exceeds the significance of its former public accessibility as part of a museum collection. From this perspective the art theft adds dynamism to the mechanisms of production, distribution, circulation and consumption. An obejct secured in a particular collection is ‘liberated’ by its theft, and subsequently illegally re-introduced into the cycle of supply and demand. The channelling of stolen goods into the market, though, is risky for the criminal as they are in danger of being caught and arrested when they offer somebody their haul.

This is where the Kunstklappe© (Art Hatch) comes into play. It was developed by Moussa Kone and Erwin Uhrmann under the immediate impact of the spectacular Saliera robbery, and was in operation from 2004 – 2007. Based on the ‘baby hatch’, art thieves could drop stolen artworks anonymously into an adapted basement window on Myrthengasse, Vienna, and temporarily also in Cologne during the spring of 2006 at any time of day or night. Even if the person who stole the famous salt cellar famously did not make use of this opportunity to unload his stolen goods discretely and pursued the ransom money instead (which promptly led to his arrest), a total of 45 objects were deposited in the two art hatches. Presumably these anonymous deposits were not all stolen goods and the items found by the two initiators in the softly lined container behind the hatch were clearly not all artworks. Decisive, however, was the appeal for the return of items and a call to action for people perhaps troubled by a guilty conscience, people whose fear of being caught was so great that they preferred not to run the risk of fencing their stolen goods, or people who wanted to promote the cycle of art objects by passing items on.

Independent of status and appearance, each of the deposited objects was carefully analysed, scientifically documented and catalogued. This work involved extensive research to identify possible owners, including recourse to lost property information from the police or the private Art Loss Register, an international database for stolen artworks. A number of victims were, in fact, found so that individual works could be returned to their original owners. Several exciting stories surround the objects that emerged, and parts of the research unearthed a true art crime story! For instance, there is a sculpture that was stolen from the grounds of a closed psychiatric facility in Italy which was accompanied by an anonymous letter of confession. Another success was the return of two baroque angels that had been stolen from a small church in the Waldviertel during a procession back in 1972. Also worth mentioning is the return of a small wooden crown from Crown Prince Rudolf’s cradle that had been broken off and stolen about 20 years ago, and which could subsequently be returned to the Hofmobiliendepot in Vienna. A complete overview of all the objects deposited was available online. No wonder Moussa Kone and Erwin Uhrmann were awarded a Medal of Honour in 2009 from the Lower Austrian Chief of Police for their Kunstklappe©. Even if the art flap proved to be a useful tool for the return of stolen art it was primarily conceived as an art project. It is no coincidence that the two artists have brought out a patent and a copyright on their idea. Precisely because, in contrast to most private services, they did not link any financial rewards to the return of the stolen art this delineation seems particularly clear. Neither finder’s reward nor a commission are the motive but the circulation of the artworks and, in the final analysis, the deconstruction of the art system. What is shown is that objects are perceived as being of particular intrinsic value by virtue of having been presented as art in a specific context. Kone and Uhrmann apply this very mechanism when they declare all of the objects deposited in the Kunstklappe© to be art by adding them to their Sammlung Gestohlener Kunst (Collection of Stolen Art) and inventorising them scientifically in this context. Accordingly, the Kunstklappe© becomes an art generator that fundamentally reflects the process of becoming art. The Collection of Stolen Art is a mobile archive for the documentation of all items deposited in the art hatch, and as such it is also the depot for those objects which could not be returned as the original owners have yet to be found. An index card catalogue for in situ research, an online database as well as an integrated monitor provide an overview of the origins or current whereabouts of the objects and the circumstances of their emergence. The professional-looking archive chest, complete with a lockable barred door, integrated neon lighting and a smoke detector, provides a public display for the items while housing its contents securely. It leaves no doubt as to the sincerity and diligence of its designers. At the same time, it looks like an installation in the museum-like context of an extended collection: the Collection of Stolen Art becomes a form of art, and as such is itself suitable for integration in the next largest collection. The cycle of the art system has closed the circle again for a moment, restarting the interplay of inclusion and exclusion, of presence and absence, of sought and found, hunter and quarry. However, for the moment of the exhibition of the Collection of Stolen Art there is temporarily a kind of equilibrium, a suggestion of a memory beyond time that only vaguely remembers the turmoil of the art system.

Text by Ulli Seegers, former director of the Art Loss Register, Cologne, 2011 (translated from German)