Uriel Landeros, de Houston, fue acusado el viernes del delito de graffiti y daños a la propiedad por rociar pintura sobre la obra de arte titulada Femme au fauteuil rouge de la Colección Menil de la ciudad. Crime Stoppers dijo que ofrece una recompensa de 5 mil dólares por pistas que lleven al arresto del hombre de 22 años. La pintura fue dañada el 13 de junio y desde entonces se ha logrado restaurar. El acto de vandalismo fue registrado en un video de 24 segundos tomado por una persona que estaba en el museo y lo publicó en YouTube. El video muestra a un hombre vestido de negro colocando una plantilla sobre la obra y pintándola con un rociador. En la descripción del video se dice que Landeros es un artista mexico-estadounidense. El hombre pintó la imagen de un torero, un toro y la palabra «conquista», en español.

La policía informó que Landeros es el hombre que aparece en el video captado por las cámaras del museo mientras esparce pintura en aerosol sobre el cuadro “Mujer en silla roja”, pintado por Picasso en 1929. Los dos delitos, de tercer grado, se castigan con una pena mínima de dos años de cárcel y una máxima de 10.

El blog de arte Hyperallergic dice: La primera regla de las redes sociales es que es muy difícil hacer que las cosas permanezcan en el dominio de lo privado. Por esto, no resulta difícil de entender que casi todo lo que se publica en la red es, de alguna manera, accesible a gente que usted no quiere que se entere. Esto nos lleva a la primera norma de vandalismo del arte: si lo hizo, no lo diga en YouTube o escriba sobre esto en su página de Facebook – a menos que quiera vérselas con la ley.

Aquí el texto de Hyperallergic:

Artist Is Charged in Picasso Vandalism Case

The first rule of social networking is that it’s very hard to make things private. It’s a decent bet that almost everything you post online is in some way accessible by people you don’t necessarily want to see it. This leads us the related first rule of art vandalism: if you did it, don’t claim it on YouTube or post about it on your Facebook page — unless you want to get charged.

Such is the case with 22-year-old artist Uriel Landeros, who appears to be the prime suspect in the Menil’s Picasso vandalism case from last week. Houston’s CultureMap reports that Landeros has been charged by the District Attorny’s office with two third-degree felonies: criminal mischief and felony graffiti. Crime Stoppers is even offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to charges or an arrest.

A photo of Uriel Landeros from his Facebook page

For those who might have missed the story thus far, a man approached Picasso’s “Femme au fauteuil rouge (Woman in a Red Armchair)” (1929) in a gallery at the Menil Collection last week and stenciled the image of a bullfighter killing a bull and the word “conquista” onto it. Someone else caught the whole thing on his cell-phone camera and posted it on YouTube, identifying Landeros as the culprit in the caption, along with the words “In Dedication to the art beast Pablo Picasso,” which would seem to come from the vandal himself, or at least someone in on the whole thing. It’s unclear what the connection is between the two men, who just happened to run into each other again a few days later.

Landeros himself has left a vague, though easily followed, social media trail. On Facebook last week, he liked a link to a local Houston news report on the Picasso vandalism, which showed up on his profile page. Under it a friend commented, “what is wrong with you? stop posting this stuff.” We can’t help but think Landeros should listen to his friends.

Interestingly, he also changed his profile picture at the end of May to a painting of the word “Conquista,” though he’s since changed it back. And on his very sparse Twitter feed, Landeros made two seemingly telling remarks in the past few months:

Then again it’s entirely possible that Landeros is just trying to grab some publicity and attention for his fledgling art career, or cover for someone else. But according to CultureMap, the studio where he had been working and sometimes living was emptied out last week; the leaseholder, a friend of Landeros, hadn’t paid rent in over a month. And the police haven’t caught him up with him yet:

“Right now the suspect is not in custody, but we’re working with local law enforcement agencies to locate him,” assistant district attorney John Lewis told CultureMap Friday. “We have other persons of interest as well and we’re following up on all leads.”

 

publicado por Hyperallergic