Marina Abramovic and Ulay's Historic Gambit: The Artwork Theft Caper that Shook the Art World

(Hardback)

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On 12 December 1976, German conceptual artist Ulay stole Hitlers favorite painting from the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. It was art theft as conceptual artworkhe hung the painting on the wall of a working-class immigrant family then phoned the museum to let them know where they could retrieve it. This is among the most famous performance artworks in history, and Ulays most iconic artistic action. This unique and groundbreaking book tells the complete story of this art theft as artwork from three perspectives and with three authors. While Ulay passed away in 2020, he recorded his own first-person account of the action in conversation with art historian Noah Charney. This direct account from Ulay will provide one part of the book. The action was conceived and undertaken along with Ulays partner at the time, Marina Abramovic, who is among the most famous living artists in the worldher account of the action will follow Ulays in this book. Finally, Noah Charney will write about the action and placing it within the context of art history as well as the story of art theft. The result is the definitive book on this fascinating incident's importance to both the history of art theft and the history of art.

Author Bio

Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Marina Abramovic has pioneered performance as a visual art form, creating some of the most important early works. The body has always been both her subject and medium. Exploring her physical and mental limits in works that ritualize the simple actions of everyday life, she has withstood pain, exhaustion and danger in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. From 197588, Abramovic and the German artist Ulay performed together, dealing with relations of duality. Abramovic returned to solo performances in 1989.
She has presented her work at major institutions in the US and Europe, including the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven,1985; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1990; Neue National Galerie, Berlin, 1993, and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1995. She has also participated in many large-scale international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1976 and 1997) and Documenta VI, VII and IX, Kassel (1977, 1982 and 1992). Recent performances include "The House With The Ocean View" at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York in 2002, and the Performance "7 Easy Pieces" at Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2005. In 2010, Abramovic had her first major U.S. retrospective and simultaneously performed for over 700 hours in The Artist is Present at Museum of Modern Art, New York. Using herself and the public as medium, Abramovic performed for three months at the Serpentine Gallery in London, 2014; the piece was titled after the duration of the work, 512 Hours.
She was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale for the video installation and performance Balkan Baroque. In 2008 she was decorated with the Austrian Commander Cross for her contribution to Art History. In 2013, the French Minister of Culture accepted her as an Officer to the Order of Arts and Letters. In addition to these and other awards, Abramovic also holds multiple honorary doctorates from institutions around the world.
Abramovic founded the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), a platform for immaterial and long durational work to create new possibilities for collaboration among thinkers of all fields.


Ulay, born Frank Uwe Laysiepen in 1943, emerged as a pioneering figure in the world of performance and conceptual art. His boundary-pushing collaborations with Marina Abramovic during the 1970s garnered international acclaim, challenging conventions of art, gender, and human relationships. Together, they explored themes of trust, endurance, and identity in their daring performances, such as "Relation in Space" and "Imponderabilia," which pushed physical and psychological limits.
Beyond his collaborative work, Ulay's solo career delved into photography, video art, and environmental activism. His introspective pieces often reflected on personal and societal transformations, blending artistic expression with social commentary. His famous series "S'he" addressed gender fluidity and the fluidity of identity, questioning societal norms and expectations.
Ulay's later career saw him exploring themes of mobility and migration, resonating deeply with his own experiences and the changing world around him. His works continue to influence contemporary artists and provoke discussions on art's role in society.
Ulay's legacy is one of fearless experimentation and profound introspection, marking him as a seminal figure not only in German art history but in the global avant-garde movement of the 20th century.


Dr. Noah Charney is the internationally best-selling author of more than a dozen books, translated into fourteen languages, including The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art, which was nominated for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, and Museum of Lost Art, which was the finalist for the 2018 Digital Book World Award. He is a professor of art history specializing in art crime, and has taught for Yale University, Brown University, American University of Rome and University of Ljubljana. He is founder of ARCA, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, a ground-breaking research group (www.artcrimeresearch.org) and teaches on their annual summer-long Postgraduate Program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection. He has written for dozens of major magazines and newspapers, including The Guardian, the Washington Post, the Observer and The Art Newspaper. His recent books on art include The Devil in the Gallery: How Scandal, Shock and Rivalry Shaped the Art World, Making It: The Artists Survival Guide, The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know About Art in a Dozen Masterpieces, and Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art, several of which were Amazon #1 best-sellers in their category. He also published the critically-acclaimed The Slavic Myths (Thames & Hudson) in the fall of 2023 and The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: The Complete Story of the Worlds Most Famous Artwork (Rowman & Littlefield, February 2024), which was praised in The New York Times Book Review and The Telegraph among others. He recently fronted an influencer campaign for Samsung, in 2022 he presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Chinas Stolen Treaures, his TED Ed videos (some on art crime) have been viewed by millions each, and he featured in a recent Amazon Prime documentary, The Picasso of Thieves. A course of his, Lost Art, featured this summer for The Teaching Companys Great Courses/Wondrium, the first of several that are scheduled, and he teaches online courses for Atlas Obscura, the Smithsonian, the National Gallery UK, and Yale University on art theft and forgery. He lives in Slovenia with his wife, children and their hairless dog, Hubert van Eyck (believe it or not). Learn more at www.noahcharney.com.