Courbet’s “The Origin of the World” ‘attacked’ at Center Pompidou-Metz and another work stolen – Life

The work by Gustave Courbet, which represents female genitalia, was “protected by glass”, a museum source told France-Presse (AFP).

This action, organized by the Franco-Luxembourg performance artist Deborah de Robertis, was called “We do not separate the woman from the artist”.

Two women tagged “Me Too” [em referência ao movimento de denúncia de abusos sexuais] in this work by Coubert, as well as in a work by Valie Export, Deborah de Robertis told AFP.

In total, five works were labeled with the words “Me Too”, according to the Center Pompidou-Metz, which explained, in a statement, that some people “distracted employees and security guards, allowing other members of the group” to label the works.

“With all the respect we have for feminist movements, we are shocked to see the works of artists, especially feminist artists, at the center of struggles in art history being vandalized,” highlighted Chiara Parisi, director of the museum, quoted in the statement.

The artist explained that she wanted to “challenge the history of art”, in particular marking MeToo in this famous painting “because women are the origin of the world”.

Two young women, born in 1986 and 1993 and with no criminal record, were detained by the police, Metz public prosecutor Yves Badorc told AFP.

The stolen work, a red embroidery on fabric by Annette Messager, is called “I think, therefore I’m terrible” (1991).

When asked about this theft by AFP, de Robertis confirmed it was 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 psychoanalysis”, in which the embroidery was on display, de Robertis explained to AFP.

The mayor of Metz, François Grosdidier of the right-wing Republicans (LR) said he was “outraged and shocked” by the attempt to target Courbet’s painting, referring to a “criminal act against an important work” of French heritage.

Painted in 1866, “The Origin of the World” entered the collection 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.

Deborah de Robertis explained that she created this feminist performance because “the very closed world of contemporary art has until now remained practically silent”.

He also denounced, in an open letter, the behavior of six other men in the sector, classifying them as “calculating”, “predators” or “censors”.

A photo by Deborah de Robertis, called “Mirror of the Origin of the World” is also on display near “The Origin of the World” for the Center Pompidou-Metz exhibition dedicated to the psychoanalyst.

Fined for undressing in front of the Lourdes grotto in 2018, the artist was also acquitted several times after similar actions, namely in 2017, for showing her genitals in the Louvre museum in front of the “Mona Lisa”, in Paris.