Crime Museum - San Francisco, Berlin
The vine bottles and broken statues were the only witnesses. They were there when it happened. Most bear the physical scars of the moment; a tear through its canvas; a missing arm; even an open wound made when teeth meet chocolate. Some were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others like the spice rack, just as happy to be rid of the cheating husband as she was, willing to do whatever it took. In the Crime Museum these uncommon objects keep to themselves, isolated in plastic vitrines, and held captive in the dim spotlights from above. Their stories are shared with visitors in hushed tones, like a secret among friends. --
The Crime Museum was installed at the New Langton Arts in San Francisco by the German artist Hans Winkler. He created seven pieces of "criminal art" with "evidence" from newspaper clippings, insurance records and police reports. Each piece is accompanied by short crime fiction by New York mystery writer Candida B. Korman.
„Kunstspezialist für die kreative Beschaffung von Kunstwerken gesucht“, lautet die Anzeige in einer überregionalen Tageszeitung, in der Hans HS Winkler nach einem Kunstdieb sucht. Durch internationale Polizeiberichte, Zeitungsartikel und mit Hilfe von Versichrungsunternehmen findet Winkler Kriminalfälle heraus, in denen Kunst als Tatbestand von Verbrechen im Mittelpunkt steht.
Nach der Präsentation in San Fransisco werden hier erstmals in Deutschland - in der Galerie Eva Bracke - ausgewählte Objekte der Öffentlickeit vorgestellt.
Kunstforum:" Der Berliner Künstler HS Winkler suchte einen Kunstdieb und gab deswegen eine Zeitungsannonce auf. Text: „Kunstspezialist für die kreative Beschaffung von Kunstwerken gesucht". Ob sich auf die Anzeige tatsächlich jemand gemeldet hat, lässt die Pressemitteilung offen. Winkler recherchierte jedenfalls die reale Kunstkriminalität in der Presse, in Polizeiberichten und Unterlagen von Versicherungen.
Immerhin nehmen Fälschungen und Diebstähle von Kunstwerken in einer weltweiten Kriminalitätsstatistik den vierten Platz ein. Seine Rechercheergebnisse fasst der Künstler nun in einem „Crime Museum" zusammen, das er soeben in San Francisco ausstellte und dessen Fundus anschließend vom 3. November bis zum 1. Dezember 2007 in der Berliner Galerie Eva Bracke zu sehen ist (Torstr. 170). (JR)"
Galerie Eva Bracke , Berlin, 2007, www.evabracke.com ,
New Langton Arts, San Francisco, 2004, http://newlangtonarts.org
Experienced art thief wanted / Interventionist artist to exhibit with art and crime as its theme
January 20, 2004|By Stacy Finz, Chronicle Staff Writer
Hans Winkler is looking for a few good crooks.
An art thief with sticky fingers and a penchant for cracking complex museum alarm systems would be especially nice.
So Winkler has put in a help-wanted ad in a San Francisco alternative newspaper and hopes to be reviewing rap sheets very soon. Oh, and by the way, Winkler is not a cop, or one of those do-gooder convict reformers. He's a 49-year-old German artist from Berlin who has been a visiting professor at the San Francisco Art Institute for five years.
He is currently preparing his multimedia installation "Crime Museum" for the New Langton Arts gallery in San Francisco, where art really is expected to imitate life. His work is difficult to describe, but it often revolves around his pulling a public stunt and documenting its reaction.
This is a guy who dressed up in a bear suit once and lumbered through a national park in Germany just to see what would happen: The local newspaper reported the bear was real.
This time his exhibit, a mixture of video productions, sculpture and "lurid prose" by mystery writer Candy Korman, specifically focuses on cases where art was either the weapon or the motive for various crimes. Korman's narratives punctuate each one of Winkler's examples.
For the crowning touch of the show, scheduled to start Jan. 27, Winkler hopes to hire an art thief. But he's tight-lipped about his plans for this veritable Thomas Crown.
"I just want to see what will happen," he says coyly.
The Bay Guardian classified ad says "discretion required" and gives a P.O. box at a Postal Annex on Bay Street. In the meantime, local cops seemed not to have noticed the quirky classified.
"Huh?" said Lt. Tom Buckley of the San Francisco Police Department's burglary unit upon hearing of the ad. "I'm going to find a paper right now."
Buckley said it was highly unlikely that a real art thief, the most sophisticated of criminals, would respond to a classified. "After all," he said. "I could be the one putting out the ad."
Nevertheless, Buckley is putting an investigator on the case -- just in case. You can never be too sure these days. Who would have thought Arnim Meiwes, a self-confessed cannibal, would have gotten any responses to his query to kill and eat someone?
The 42-year-old computer technician is currently on trial in Germany for killing, dissecting and dining on Bernd Jurgen Brandes, a 43-year-old engineer. Meiwes says that the two met in an Internet chat room for cannibals and that Brandes volunteered to be slaughtered. They even went as far as to plan the method in which Brandes would be killed, cooked and eaten, according to Meiwes.
But Winkler, who considers himself a provocateur, thinks that was going too far. He swears that he would never hire or give someone money "to do something bad."
He admits to having had manipulated a few road signs in Havana and to sinking a gondola in Venice as part of his other projects. Winkler says it was to get public reaction. In the creative world, they call it interventionist art.
In the legal world, art theft is called two to 10 years in the state pen.E-mail the Stacy Finz at sfinz@sfchronicle.com.
San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 19,2004
Hans Winkler is looking for a few good crooks. An art thief with sticky fingers and a penchant for cracking complex museum alarm systems would be especially nice. So Winkler has put in a help-wanted ad in a San Francisco alternative newspaper and hopes to be reviewing rap sheets very soon. Oh, and by the way, Winkler is not a cop, or one of those do-gooder convict reformers. He's a 49-year-old German artist from Berlin who has been a visiting professor at the San Francisco Art Institute for five years. He is currently preparing his multimedia installation "Crime Museum" for the New Langton Arts gallery in San Francisco, where art really is expected to imitate life. His work is difficult to describe, but it often revolves around his pulling a public stunt and documenting its reaction. This is a guy who dressed up in a bear suit once and lumbered through a national park in Germany just to see what would happen: The local newspaper reported the bear was real.
This time his exhibit, a mixture of video productions, sculpture and "lurid prose" by mystery writer Candy Korman, specifically focuses on cases where art was either the weapon or the motive for various crimes. Korman's narratives punctuate each one of Winkler's examples. For the crowning touch of the show, scheduled to start Jan. 27, Winkler hopes to hire an art thief. But he's tight-lipped about his plans for this veritable Thomas Crown. "I just want to see what will happen," he says coyly. The Bay Guardian classified ad says "discretion required" and gives a P.O. box at a Postal Annex on Bay Street. In the meantime, local cops seemed not to have noticed the quirky classified. "Huh?" said Lt. Tom Buckley of the San Francisco Police Department's burglary unit upon hearing of the ad. "I'm going to find a paper right now." Buckley said it was highly unlikely that a real art thief, the most sophisticated of criminals, would respond to a classified. "After all," he said. "I could be the one putting out the ad." Nevertheless, Buckley is putting an investigator on the case -- just in case. You can never be too sure these days.
Who would have thought Arnim Meiwes, a self-confessed cannibal, would have gotten any responses to his query to kill and eat someone? The 42-year-old computer technician is currently on trial in Germany for killing, dissecting and dining on Bernd Jurgen Brandes, a 43-year-old engineer. Meiwes says that the two met in an Internet chat room for cannibals and that Brandes volunteered to be slaughtered. They even went as far as to plan the method in which Brandes would be killed, cooked and eaten, according to Meiwes. But Winkler, who considers himself a provocateur, thinks that was going too far. He swears that he would never hire or give someone money "to do something bad." He admits to having had manipulated a few road signs in Havana and to sinking a gondola in Venice as part of his other projects. Winkler says it was to get public reaction. In the creative world, they call it interventionist art. In the legal world, art theft is called two to 10 years in the state pen.
E-mail the Stacy Finz at sfinz@sfchronicle.com.
the pocket guide of the crime museum is avaible.
