“Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal”

Unknown, attributed both to Picasso and Stravinsky but probably stolen from elsewhere

Art Heist is an experience that breaks open the world of art. It’s a exhilarating, fun adventure that connects audiences with conceptual art, the art gallery, questions of ownership and the value of art by letting them plan and execute their very own art heist. Art Heist gives the excitement of breaking into a gallery while posing its audience big questions about art: who is it for, who decides what’s good, why is it valuable and does the value of the art lie in the idea or in the object? The outcome of their heist is shaped by how they engage with these ideas.

Theft or, the more respectable term ‘appropriation’, has become a fundamental approach in the construction of art in the 20th century. It explores value and object within the cultural system; from Marcel Duchamps ready-mades to Ulay’s There is a Criminal Touch to Art to the 21st century mashups of cultural artefacts including Jon Routsons Bootlegs and Douglas Gordon 24 Hour Psycho. Appropriation represents a a permissive quality within art practice sanctioning theft both in the name of artistic radicalism and critique.

Art Heist seeks to create situations and events that invite spectators to become active participants in dialogue with the art context and each other. Through the actions of the audience the work simultaneously questions the authority and role of art and the people who confer cultural and monetary worth to the art objects.

The Story

The audience is ‘recruited’ by a collector to steal a contemporary installation piece by fictional artist Yami Coe. Coe makes art about the moment. Her pieces are not seen before installation, nor documented; she destroys each legendary piece after it’s been exhibited as part of her practice. She feels her work should only be experienced in its right (time) frame, the frame for which it is made, the space it’s created for and the duration of the exhibition. Accordingly nobody has seen Yami’s new installation yet, it is still in its crate at the gallery awaiting installation.

One collector is determined to capture Yami’s latest masterpiece. He considers her work is seminal, and feels just one of her pieces should be kept for posterity. His aim is to have the original stolen and substituted with a forgery. He’s not interested in financial gain but in keeping the work safe to inspire future generations. All he needs is a few accomplices to make a forgery, break into the gallery, and swap it for the original.

The audience is invited by him to become part of the Heist team. Their task is to steal Yami’s original installation and put a credible forgery in its place, in a manner that no one will discover the switch. The fake will pass for the real thing during the exhibition. The truth will only come out when the collector bequeaths the piece to the nation after his death,.

The narrative starts online in the playing audience’s inboxes when they are approached by the mysterious collector to become part of a small gang. Via email, telephone calls and other digital communications they slowly learn more about the art, the artist, the gallery and each other as they plan their heist. On the day of the heist they forge Coe’s art piece based on the conceptual description of her piece and hit the gallery to swap it for the real thing.

They use theft, forgery, bribery and other forms of deception to accomplish the task, all the while encountering ideas about contemporary art, art collection and ownership through interaction with different characters. The audience must make mission-critical decisions based on their newly acquired arguments and information.

Art Heist provides an exciting narrative framework that catapults the audience into the leading role offering them the chance to be heroic in extraordinary circumstances. Coney’s work doesn’t ’show’: it creates a world, using digital and non-digital tools, storytelling and game-design.

In Art Heist the engagement – with elements including aesthetics, humour, economics, doubt, transgression and culpability – reveals moments where the roles and ethical standpoints of the audience, individuals, artists and galleries come to the forefront.

Art Heist development at Walsall

Art Heist was developed and tested at New Art Gallery Walsall with support from Arts Council of England between May and October 2010.

The development took place in three stages.

In The Game of Art Coney organised a small, half-day adventure specifically aimed at artists, curators and arts professionals. The fictional artist ’staged Walsall’ and, via telephone call, texts and secret dead drops, invited the playing audience to collect her work. She provided a list of titles (all famous conceptual art pieces from the last 50years) and sent them into Walsall. They then ‘broke in’ to the technical space where they mounted their favourite art piece, created a gallery-quality label for it and reverse heisted it into the gallery.

The adventure was followed by half a day of discussion and fun and playful knowledge exchange to feed into the narrative and the thematic exploration of Art Heist.

The second module was The Mechanics of Crime: a series of half-day heists. This module focused on the heist itself, with the forgery being supplied to players as a prop. On a weekend early October the art gallery was robbed three times. Gangs of eight players each time met in the art gallery where they were contacted by SMS by the collector and led to a dead drop which had instructions, a map of the gallery, a key to the loading dock and a get out plan. They planned their heist with the help of the collector. They entered via the back door in the loading bay, distracted security and robbed the piece from its crate in the space it was held before being installed into the gallery.

In Heisting Art, the narrative began online a week before the date of the heist. A team of seven started interacting with the collector. As they plotted, the discussed their attitude to the art-work and artist, gained inside knowledge about the workings of the gallery and learned more about the story and the plans of the collector. When they met the collector in a pub around the corner of the gallery they plotted and set out to bribe a security guard in the gallery. They then forged Coe’s installation in a hotel room before entering the gallery for the switch. Whilst in the middle of the heist, the bribed security guard informed them that the alarm had been triggered and they needed to make a quick get away via the basement. They ran and just made it out. The group were then confronted by the artist (via a phone hidden in the art piece) and have to make a choice; to go ahead with the plan and give the piece to the collector to be saved for posterity, give it to the artist so she could destroy the piece or give it to the gallery curator and let her decide.

Robbing The New Art Gallery Walsall several times robustly tested the concept. It was great fun and very exciting. The inventiveness of the audiences was, as always, impressive. One group bribed the security guard with a publishing deal for his fictitious novel, another group created a distraction by feigning a rather convincing fainting fit.

We were very impressed by the forgeries of the fictitious art installation. The last group’s forgery made references to a roman fertility ceremony they had found online, involving a set of straw dolls (made from twine and yellow ribbon), water, a chalice, and some green paint accompanied by a full set of instructions for a curator on how to install the piece the piece and a beautiful set of instructions for the audience on how to interact with the piece.

Some of the feedback we received:

“imaginative and ambitious” Jeremy Thrill (artist)

“In terms of heart palpitations and sweaty palms, talking to the real security guard after i’d ‘fainted’ was, and one of the most exciting points”

Vicky Roden

[My] favourite part was producing the forgery itself - we based this on the few details we gleaned from the website (bowl, pigment, Roman rituals, something personal) and our experience of conceptual art; half the team did the making of the objects whilst the other half concentrated on

making the instructions to the curator and on the ritual

Stephen Mills (consultant at IBM)

“…it made me think about Art in a different way, that we should keep art for the nation and it should be free for all to enjoy.” Hannah Jones (HNC Fine Art student from Walsall College)

“I think [Art Heist] is part of an important new strand of enquiry into audience and art” Melissa Page (Research and Development Officer at ixia - public art think tank)

Art Heist was originally conceived in collaboration with Winterwell Associates. Its first R&D/playtesting phase took place in May and October 2010 at the New Art Gallery Walsall. It was part of the Art of Ideas programme produced by Arts & Business West Midlands, and was supported by the Arts Council of England.

For more information about Art Heist or if you think you have something to offer future development… contact heisting@youhavefoundconey.net