A “criminal act” perpetrated by “feminist fanatics” for some, an artistic action for others: the painting The origin of the world (1866) by Courbet was sprayed with red paint on Monday at the Center Pompidou-Metz, in eastern France, and another work was stolen.
The work of Gustave Courbet, which represents a female genitalia, was “protected by glass”, the museum told AFP.
This “action”, organized by the Franco-Luxembourgish performance artist Deborah de Robertis, was called “We do not separate the woman from the artist”.
Two women tagged “MeToo” on The origin of the worldas well as on a work by Valie Export, specified Mme from Robertis to AFP.
In total, five works were tagged with the MeToo mention, according to the Center Pompidou-Metz, which explains in a press release that a few people “distracted the mediation and security staff, allowing other members of the group” to tag pieces.
“All the works are currently being examined,” the museum said Monday evening.
“With all the respect we have for feminist movements, we are shocked to see the works of artists, particularly feminist artists, at the heart of the struggles of art history being vandalized,” declared Chiara Parisi, director of the museum, cited in the press release.
In a video sent to AFP by Deborah de Robertis, one woman tags Courbet’s famous painting with red paint, another a different painting. They then chant “Me Too”, spray paint in hand, before being dragged towards the exit by security agents.
The artist explained that he wanted to “challenge the history of art” in particular by tagging MeToo on this famous painting “because women are the origin of the world”.
Two young women, born in 1986 and 1993 and without criminal records “were taken into police custody at the beginning of the afternoon,” Metz public prosecutor Yves Badorc told AFP.
“Gesture of reappropriation”
The investigation, entrusted to the interdepartmental judicial police service of Metz, was opened for the two counts of “degradation or deterioration of cultural property committed during a meeting” and “theft of cultural property during a meeting”, specified the magistrate.
A third person, who has not been arrested, could in fact be behind the theft of a work, according to Mr. Badorc.
The stolen work, a red embroidery on fabric by Annette Messager, is named I think so I suck (1991).
Asked on this point by AFP, Deborah de Robertis confirmed a “gesture of reappropriation”.
A “reappropriation” because the work comes from the personal collection of an art critic, also one of the curators of the exhibition Lacan, when art meets psychoanalysisin which the embroidery was exposed, explained to AFP Mme by Robertis.
“I recognized her straight away, I wanted to vomit, because it’s the one hanging above her marital bed. I remembered the numerous blowjobs that he allowed himself to ask me for as if it were his due,” while Mme de Robertis was only 26 years old, she says in a press release.
The artist briefly published a video on and a photographer. In the background, cries of “MeToo” resonate in the exhibition gallery.
The mayor of Metz, François Grosdidier (Les Républicains, right), said he was “outraged and shocked” by the attempted defacement of Courbet’s painting, referring to a “criminal act against a major work of our heritage”.
Painted in 1866, “The Origin of the World” entered the collections of the Musée d’Orsay in 1995. The work, known worldwide, changed hands several times and its last private owner was the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
Nude sex
Deborah de Robertis explained that she created this feminist performance because “the very closed world of contemporary art has until now remained mostly silent”. She also denounced, in an open letter, the behavior of six other men in the industry, calling them “calculating”, “predatory” or “censorious”.
A photo of Deborah de Robertis, baptized Mirror of the Origin of the world is also exposed near The origin of the world for the Center Pompidou-Metz exhibition dedicated to the psychoanalyst. We see the artist pose, naked, under Courbet’s work, a performance carried out on May 29, 2014 at the Musée d’Orsay.
Fined for stripping in front of the Lourdes cave in 2018, she was also acquitted several times after similar actions, notably in 2017 for showing her genitals at the Louvre museum in front of “The Mona Lisa”, in Paris.