The Origin of the World, exhibited at the Center Pompidou Metz, target of an “artistic performance”

A “criminal act” perpetrated by “feminist fanatics” for some, an artistic action for others: the painting The Origin of the World by Courbet (1866) was spray-painted with red paint on Monday at the Center Pompidou-Metz and a another work was stolen. Courbet's work, which represents a female genitalia, was "protected by glass", the museum's communications department told AFP, indicating that the police were on site at the end of the afternoon to proceed. to analyses.

This “action”, organized by the Franco-Luxembourgish performance artist Deborah de Robertis, was called “We do not separate the woman from the artist”. Two women tagged “MeToo” on L’Origine du monde as well as on a work by Valie Export, said Ms. de Robertis. In total, five works would be affected, according to a message posted on X (formerly Twitter) by French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati. “To activists who think that art would not be powerful enough to carry a message by itself, we must say it again: a work is not a sign that could be colored with the message of the day,” a- she writes. “We will continue to protect the works against the new iconoclasts.”

The Center Pompidou-Metz explained in a press release that a few people “diverted the mediation and security staff, allowing other members of the group” to tag the works. “All works are currently being examined,” the museum said Monday evening. “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,” declared Chiara Parisi, director of the museum.

In a video sent to AFP by Deborah de Robertis, one woman tags Courbet's famous painting with red paint, another a different painting. They then chant “Me Too”, spray paint in hand, before being dragged towards the exit by security agents. The artist explained that he wanted to “challenge the history of art” in particular by tagging MeToo on this famous painting “because women are the origin of the world”.

Two young women, born in 1986 and 1993 and without criminal records, were taken into police custody early in the afternoon, Metz public prosecutor Yves Badorc told AFP. The investigation entrusted to the interdepartmental judicial police service of Metz was opened on two counts: “degradation or deterioration of cultural property committed during a meeting” and “theft of cultural property during a meeting”, specified the magistrate.

A third person, who has not been arrested, could be behind the theft of a work, according to Mr. Badorc. The stolen work, a red embroidery on fabric by Annette Messager, is called I think therefore I suck. Asked on this point by AFP, Ms. de Robertis confirmed a “gesture of reappropriation”.

A “reappropriation” because the work comes from the personal collection of an art critic, also one of the curators of the exhibition Lacan, when art meets psychoanalysis, in which the embroidery was exhibited, has explained to AFP Ms. de Robertis. “I recognized her straight away, I wanted to vomit, because it’s the one hanging above her marital bed. I remembered the numerous blowjobs that he allowed himself to ask me for as if it were his due,” when Ms. de Robertis was only 26 years old, she recounts in a press release.

The artist briefly published a video on visitor and a photographer. In the background, cries of “MeToo” resonate in the exhibition gallery.

The mayor LR (Les Républicains, right) of Metz, François Grosdidier, said he was “outraged and shocked” by the attempted defacement of Courbet’s painting, evoking a “criminal act against a major work of our heritage by activists claiming movement

Painted in 1866, The Origin of the World entered the collections of the Musée d'Orsay in 1995. Its commission from Courbet is attributed to an Ottoman diplomat, Khalil-Bey, a flamboyant figure in All-Paris in the 1860s, and the model would be Constance Quéniaux, former dancer at the Paris Opera. The work, known worldwide, changed hands several times and its last private owner was the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

A photo by Deborah de Robertis, called Mirror of the Origin of the World, is also exhibited near The Origin of the World as part of the Center Pompidou-Metz exhibition dedicated to the psychoanalyst. We see the artist pose, naked, under Courbet's work, a performance carried out on May 29, 2014 at the Musée d'Orsay.

Deborah de Robertis was fined 2,000 euros in 2020 for showing herself naked in 2018 during one of her performances in front of the grotto of the Lourdes sanctuary. She has also been acquitted several times after similar actions, notably in 2017 after showing her genitals at the Louvre Museum in front of the Mona Lisa in Paris.

Other works have been the subject of acts of vandalism or attempted damage in recent times. On Saturday, two activists from the Riposte Alimentaire collective, which defends sustainable food for all, were arrested after throwing orange powder into the hall of mirrors at the Château de Versailles.

This collective (formerly Last Renovation) has already claimed responsibility for throwing soup on the glass that protects the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in January, then on a painting by Claude Monet, Le Printemps, in February at the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon.