Oscar Murillo Painting Goes Missing From MoMA—Was it Theft?

BrianBoucher, Friday, March 6, 2015

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Oscar Murillo at MoMA. 
Photo: artobserved.com

An Oscar Murillo canvas was taken from theexhibition “Forever Now: Painting in an Atemporal World' at MoMA lastweek by a visitor, a MoMA representative has officially confirmed. [This storyhas been updated. See below.]

'Last week, one was removed by a visitor,'press director Margaret Doyle told artnet News in an email.

Doyle further claimed that MoMA security identifiedthe visitor and it was 'quickly returned without incident or damage to thework' and that all eight of the canvases by Murillo in the show 'areon view in the galleries.'

While yesterday afternoon, March 6, on our visit toMoMA, we spotted only seven of the canvases in the show. It is unclear whetheror not the painting has in fact been returned to the floor. Has another onegone missing or been stolen?

artnet News's sources also indicated that an OscarMurillo canvas displayed on the floor in the exhibition had disappeared—thatthere were only seven on the floor though the wall label listed eight (seeimage below).

Murillo, the Colombian-born market phenom, is showing several of histrademark abstract paintings, marked with scribbles and often with the names offood items written on them, displayed on the wall. The museum has been showingeight (8) of the paintings on the floor, where visitors are free to handle them(see Instagrammers Step On Oscar Murillo at MoMA).

So what happened?

Letting visitors handle the canvases apparently left them vulnerable to,say, theft by a sticky-fingered visitor with a backpack while a guard wasdistracted. By comparing the paintings in the gallery with those on anillustrated checklist, a source concluded that the missing work is grid(2012-14).

Installation view of Oscar Murillo's canvases at 'The Forever Now:Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World.'
Photo: Courtesy of artnet News.

The wall label, below, lists eight.

Oscar Murillo at MoMA.
Photo: artnet News

Murillo has experienced a white-hot market ever since Miami collectorsMera and Don Rubell discovered his work at the Independent art fair in New Yorkin 2012 at the booth of London dealer Stuart Shave (see 6 Weird Things the Rubells Told New York Magazine About OscarMurillo). A show followed that winter attheir collection during Art Basel in Miami Beach. In the space of a few months,in 2013, he saw his auction price soar from $37,500 (at his May 2013 auctiondebut at Sotheby's) to $400,000 (at Phillips four months later). He'srepresented by David Zwirner, who has galleries in New York and London.

Whether the thief knows specifically about Murillo'shigh prices and hoped to cash in on the theft, or it was simply a prank,remains unknown.

Of course no scrupulous buyer would purchase thepainting. If it was theft for profit, the thief would have to hope to find thesort of sinister buyer who may be displaying other priceless, stolen artworkslike the Rembrandt seascape that went missing from Boston's Isabella StewartGardner Museum in 1990.

UPDATE: As of today, March 7, at noon, there wereindeed eight canvases back on view. See below image.

Installation view of Oscar Murillo's canvases at 'The Forever Now:Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World.'
Photo: artnet News.