I Was A Teenaged Art Thief

No lie: I really was an art thief, and no mere gallery shoplifter, either. I, with the aid of my alternately nervous and goading companion absconded with eight works from the walls of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. After years of reflection I have come to only one conclusion: I committed this crime solely so I would have a story to tell. This story. And I have told it, over and over, short versions, long detailed saga versions, recitations tailored for specific audiences (moms, say, or law enforcement), and I've written numerous accounts of the crime, its context, and its aftermath. I have kept at writing new versions of the story because I have been vainly searching for a meaning, a moral-- hell, at this point, twenty years on, I'd settle for a simple unifying theme. But both I and the story have grown old, and I realize nowwhat should have been nakedly obvious all the time: the Art Thief story has no moral, no meaning, nothing to teach myself or any other-- it is, was, and shall always be a pointless anecdote, no more no less. So, before we begin I'd like to humbly request that the reader keep two facts firmly in mind: one, there is no point or hidden meaning, and two, we gave them back.
None of the names have been changed: no one was innocent. The objects absconded were eight (or nine, depending on how you count) works of art from the walls of the SF MOMA, ca. summer 1987: four Paul Klee's, two Picasso's, a Man Ray rayograph, and an Edward Steichen saucy photograph of a teenaged Joan Crawford from 1935. One of the Paul Klee's had another painting on its reverse, and was framed with glass on both sides, so I guess it technically counts as two, unless (like us that night) you're counting frames, in which case: one. It still rankles me that the newspapers the next day highlighted the two Picassos which were simple line drawings, studies for paintings he did later, and only mentioned the more accomplished Klees in the body of the articles. The headline screamed in World War II-size type, "Thieves Take Two Picassos," and if that was all you read you'd think that was all that we took. Name recognition counts for a lot, at least with the yellow San Francisco newspapers.

The day of the crime began lazily enough. I, aimless & jobless, had followed my dubious but accomodating dorm girlfriend, a particularly high-strung LA JAP drama queen known inevitably as Kimmie to her new digs in San Francisco's Richmond District, to a house otherwise full of jolly Iranians, biding time until they were called back for another inevitable jihad. It was a nice house, but rather remote and fog-ridden and in those early summer days we were apt to accept any invitations elsewhere, if only to break up the monotony. So it was we found ourselves wandering hung over around some homeless art fair at Civic Center Plaza. We had been invited out by a dorm acquaintance, also newly relocated named Aaron Schock. Aaron was from Sacramento, and something of a rich boy we suspected, and his sexuality was (and perhaps still is) something he purposely kept vague. Still, he was a nice enough fellow, an art major like myself, and we shared a passion for anti-art of all stripes. We idolized the early Dadaists, Tzara, Ernst, Man Ray, the Merz guy, and had recently both been bowled over by the flights of mescaline-fueled abandon pursued inexhaustibly it seemed by our Top Fave Paul Klee. We spoke of these artists and others, criticized the works by homeless folks on display while admiring their unmistakable outsider status and Aaron, if I remember correctly, bought a trio of very simple, very loud & colorful oils of various bag people done my another bag person. Somewhere in their the theme of art robbery was raised; I remember Aaron took pride in a David Hockney banner announcing a forthcoming show he had stolen from a flagpole outside the Museum of Modern Art. We discussed openly and with enthusiasm how great it would be to "liberate" some pieces of fine art that we felt were being denatured, defanged, and robbed of their transformative potential by the bank-like surroundings in which they were housed. We spoke of which artists we would most like to steal, and what we would do with the work after the deed was done. Various ideas were suggested, I remember one: to take the stolen originals and sell them at a nearby flea market as prints to whatever lucky hillbilly happened by, thus returning them to the democratic gaze of working people. I mention all this as an antidote to the pure balderdash Aaron quickly cooked up later under the glare of interrogation lights, with the helpful prodding of reporters with an eye for the sensationalistic.