Crimes of passion?

From the Trinitonian: Crimes of passion?

by Michael Schreyach

The history of art is full of heists. A crafty theft captures the imagination. An evasive thief can even become a kind of counter-cultural hero, like Vincenzo Peruggia, the Italian handyman who nicked the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 and was on the lam for two years before being caught. Apparently, he wanted to repatriate Leonardo da Vinci’s masterwork to the painter’s native Italy. (Tidbit: Picasso was hauled in by the police for questioning about the case due to his association with another shady art thief).

Some thefts disappoint both the thieves and–obviously–the victims of their crime. The drawing recently stolen from an upscale hotel in Los Angeles may or may not be the authentic Rembrandt it was assumed to be. (Note to self: Make sure artwork is real before stealing it.)

These events bring to my mind other sorts of actions directed at artworks, particularly abstract ones. A few years ago, a woman planted a lipstick kiss (in homage, she claimed) on a painting by Cy Twombly. (If you haven’t been to Houston to see the Menil’s gallery of his works, go ASAP.) The woman was charged with vandalism, but only required to pay Twombly the symbolic sum of one euro in damages.

There are more extreme cases. A man slashed a large abstract painting by Barnett Newman in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum in 1986. (Check out his paintings on the Coates Library database, ARTstor.) The man returned in 1997 and knifed a second Newman painting. Why? Maybe he found the paintings threatening in some way, and his attacks were–in his mind–self-defense.

Newman often told a story to illustrate the intense effects his paintings could have on viewers. A painter friend of his got terribly agitated in front of Newman’s work. The man was so upset that he had tears in his eyes. Newman said: “What’s the trouble?” The friend responded: “You made me aware of myself.” Self-awareness, apparently, can be terrifying.

As an assistant professor of art history who teaches abstraction, I’m often asked: “But what does it mean?” I doubt I’ve ever given a satisfactory answer. I’ve never found it very useful to approach abstract artworks like I’m decoding a message. But I do think that abstract paintings can have a profound effect on those who view them.

In Newman’s story, it seems that coming to understand an abstract painting is a lot like coming to understand another person, or even oneself: it can be difficult. But what the process seems to involve is open acknowledgement, not cynical avoidance. Perhaps a painting by Newman asks viewers to acknowledge that to understand it (to understand its otherness), they must simultaneously come to know themselves in relation to it.

Newman’s “message,” if we decide to call it that, is that we don’t have to assume a skeptical position when it comes to the unknown, whether it’s the meaning of abstraction, ourselves or another person. If you don’t like that message, please–please!–don’t attack the art. But even if you do like it, don’t steal the painting.