Monday, February 09, 2009

Mark Staff Brandl Paintings "Inadvertently" Stolen from Belmar Laboratory of Art and Ideas

The scene of the crime-- or inadvertent crime.
Readers of the Myartspace Blog may remember my interview with Mark Staff Brandl which was posted in June of 2008. Mark is an art critic-- he writes for New York’s Art in America, SharkForum, and London’s The Art Book. He is also an artist. Mark contacted me yesterday about a story that can only be described as an artists nightmare.
The story involved museum visitors taking more than just informative materials and business cards home-- long story short, over 26 paintings were taken by visitors during an exhibit opening. Needless to say, my jaw dropped when I glanced over the article-- it dropped even further when I realized that the paintings that were “inadvertently” stolen belonged to Mark.

Discussing the exhibit and the theft Mark stated, “This is a great place, with many cutting edge shows. The opening for "Out of Sequence" was apparently enormous, more than 900 people and so on. I was not present. I wish I had been, because after the opening, they noticed that somehow 26 of my 31 paintings displayed in an installation/object had disappeared. Why no one noticed during the opening is beyond me.”
Mark continued, “Granted, my art is popular-looking, and my posters are regularly stolen and reappear framed elsewhere. I have grown to accept this as a compliment. But I have exhibited my small "Cover" paintings in circular spin racks in many venues, cities, even various countries, in museums, galleries, Kunsthallen and more, and never lost a single one.”

At this time The Lab is trying to recover the stolen paintings. For more information please read Mark’s article concerning the theft-- Brandl Art "Inadvertently" Stolen from Museum by Mark Staff Brandl -- SharkForum . Feel free to pass this information on.

Take care, Stay true,
Brian Sherwin
Senior Editor
myartspace.com
www.myartspace.com
New York Art Exchange
www.nyaxe.com
London Calling

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow....this is simply hilarious in a weird, Dada-ist, ironic kind of way!

Anonymous said...

I wonder if they had camera? It would be awesome to see a time lapsed clip of the paintings vanishing.

Mark Staff Brandl said...

Wow. The time lapsede thing would be great --- then I MIGHT even forgive everybody! Thanks for posting this Brian!

Balhatain said...

I agree. At least then you would have something to exhibit. I'm still shocked that people walked off with your paintings. Maybe someone put a FREE or TAKE ONE sign by the rack? Trying to make sense of it. Any updates?

Mark Staff Brandl said...

UPDATE: The wonderful helpers at BElmar --- Jillian and Adam --- have "retrieved" all but 7! 'd still like the videos .....