Reverse heists

This doesn’t belong in a museum

As many of you know, in my past life I was a successful criminologist (rather than this weird almost-fiction-author limbo). I worked with some wonderful people and places including heritage organisations, museums, and environmental folk. Some of this leaks into my writing, but a lot remains floating around as semi-useless knowledge in my head. But, wait… I have a newsletter with a bunch of really nice readers who for some reason seem to enjoy it when I share these random facts and thoughts (and seriously, thank you everyone for continuing to read, I love you all). So today I thought I’d share one of those random bits of knowledge that until a few years ago, I had no idea was A Thing: reverse heists.

Photo by Nauman Abdul Hafeez on Unsplash

Reverse heists are wild. Basically, some artist/creator/prankster decides that what the big museum down the road needs is to be displaying their very own artwork. Let’s skip all that hassle of going through curators, there’s a blank wall by there which is perfect for their painting. So they sneak it in and display it for all to see. New artists as well as big names participate, and it’s a genuine problem for museums: not just because of the integrity of their displays, but also because of the potential for someone to sneak in an item that is genuinely harmful. But that’s not fun to read about, so I’m going to tell you about three artists who have carried out their very own reverse heists. Starting with the infamous Banksy.

In 2005, the British Museum’s Roman gallery had an unanticipated addition: a piece of concrete with a drawn figure, mimicking rock art with an arrow-filled bison in the background and a stick figure pushing a roughly-drawn supermarket trolley. 

“This finely preserved example of primitive art dates from the Post-Catatonic era and is thought to depict early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds. The artist responsible is known to have created a substantial body of work across the South East of England under the moniker Banksymus Maximus but little else is known about him. Most art of this type has unfortunately not survived. The majority is destroyed by zealous municipal officials who fail to recognize the artistic merit and historical value of daubing on walls.”

After being installed by an unknown person(s), the work went unchallenged for three days… and only then because Banksy’s own website was challenging people to find the fake!

Banksy wasn’t the first, nor will he be the last. About a decade earlier, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art had been subject to a similar stunt with the (then) relatively unknown Sonnenschein. Frustrated by the lack of attention his work had been getting, he placed a painted bottle into the Museum. When it was removed, he repeated the move. Again and again. He did this with different artworks in different exhibitions - culminating in his breakthrough: a commentary on mainstream culture in the form of artificial poop on top of pasta and cigarette boxes. This time, the curator liked the project, and invited Sonnenschein to be an official part of the exhibition. He’s since had exhibitions dedicated to his own work: a success story. 

And finally, another success story. Not a museum this time, but a McDonalds. Two lads took it upon themselves to decorate their local McDonalds - with a self portrait. It was there 51 days before they went public with it… and the result? McDonalds gave them $50k to thank them for their innovative viral (unintentional marketing) campaign. Maybe I should be putting copies of my book out in Waterstones, rather than trying the traditional publishing route! 

With so many of these reverse heists being exposed by the artists themselves, it raises the question: how many exhibits in your local museum are unofficial? Have you ever seen one? Please, share in the comments if you have!