This Monday, May 6, shortly before 2 p.m., visitors to the gallery on the second floor of the Pompidou-Metz center which is hosting the exhibition “Lacan, When the Artist Meets Psychoanalysis” were evacuated by security agents. The latter mentioned “a problem” without further details.
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A few minutes earlier, at least two women, equipped with tubes of paint, tagged the famous painting The Origin of the World by Gustave Courbet loaned by the Musée d’Orsay Paris for the event Lacan, the exhibition, when the artist meets psychoanalysis.
Five tagged works
On the work, protected by glass, which “a priori”, should allow the painting representing a female nude to be preserved, they traced the inscription #MeToo in red letters. Four other works exhibited in the gallery suffered the same fate. Among these tables, we find in particular Genitalpanik photographer Valie Export and The Birtha gouache on paper by the artist Louise Bourgeois created in 2007.
An embroidery by Annette Messager, “I think therefore I suck” exhibited in the gallery dedicated to Lacan, was stolen. This red embroidery on fabric, a small format of 34×31 cm, is estimated at a price of €3,900 on the Pierre Bergé & Associés website.
Two women in police custody, a third person still wanted
The two women aged 38 and 29 were neutralized by the security agents present in the gallery, then arrested by the police who arrived on the scene. In the afternoon, they were taken into custody to be questioned. A third person involved is still being sought.
According to AFP, the Franco-Luxembourgish performance artist Deborah de Robertis claimed responsibility for this action in the afternoon through her lawyer. Contacted by us, the artist confirmed with a simple text message: “Yes, I organized it”.
In 2023, the artist contacted the Pompidou Metz center to have one of his works exhibited as part of Lacan and then denounced the refusal of the Center for Contemporary Art on social networks. She had finally succeeded in exposing the sulfurous Mirror a photograph of her naked, legs apart, sitting under the Origin of the World, in the Lacan exhibition.
Gallery 2 remained closed on Monday (and will be until at least Wednesday) while the police interviewed security agents and mediators from the Pompidou center, witnesses to the facts, and viewed surveillance cameras.
Outrage of the mayor of Metz
To the many visitors who had come especially for the Lacan exhibition, the reception staff explained that the gallery was closed for “maintenance”. Some people who had traveled from Strasbourg, Paris and even Toulouse expressed their disappointment.
“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,” reacted the director of the Center Pompidou-Metz Chiara Parisi.
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The mayor of Metz and president of the metropolis François Grosdidier said he was “outraged and shocked” by “this criminal act against a major work of our heritage by #MeToo activists” and “condemned with the utmost force this new attack against culture produced this time by feminist extremists […] The Republic must defend itself against obscurantism,” he insisted in a press release Monday evening.
The interdepartmental service of the Metz judicial police took up the case.
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