Thick as Thieves

The season finale of Season 2! We’re wrapping up this season with one of the biggest names in art history. Back in the 16th century, Italian master Carravagio was dabbling in a lot more than oil paints and chiaroscuro. His rap sheet includes gambling, theft, and even murder! In between creating his devastating and beautiful masterpieces, this scrappy artist lived a hardboiled life of crime. On this week’s episode, we discuss his lesser-known felonious legacy.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

In the penultimate episode of Season 2, we delve into the fascinating story of a stolen Gustav Klimt painting that stumped the world, its unlikely recent recovery, and all the shocking discoveries that sprung up along the way. This 1997 theft is a page-turner, a cliffhanger, and a nail-biter all in one.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

In this weekâ€s episode, we talk about the tumultuous, and eventually fatal, relationship between artists Ana Mendieta and Carl Andre. In 1985, after eight months of marriage, Ana Mendieta fell to her death from the 34th-floor New York apartment she shared with Andre. When he called 911, he flatly stated they were artists and “she went to the bedroom, and I went after her, and she went out the window.” He was acquitted of her murder, and went on to enjoy a hugely celebrated career among the art worldâ€s most elite. We discuss the circumstances of the murder, the changing times, and the responsibility of the art world at large to hold our artists accountable.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

On this weekâ€s episode, we delve into a recent crime that left the international art world in shock. In the bustling art mecca of Berlin, Rebeccah Blum, a distinguished American curator was found stabbed to death by her boyfriend, Saul Fletcher, a renowned British photographer. Shortly after the murder, the 53-year-old artist committed suicide. Now, the art world has a critical choice to make in how it remembers her legacy and reconsiders his artwork. Listen as we discuss the complicated circumstance of this double death.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

Veronica and Sara return from the quarantine imposed hiatus to pick Season 2 right back up where they left off, discussing the varietal ways in which art is destroyed or vandalized.

This week, we discuss the bizarre desire to set your art on fire. Scott Campbell, the celebrity tattooist turned artworld star known for inking up people like Heath Ledger, Nan Goldin, and Mark Jacobs, committed an art crime against himself. He was working on a tattoo-based visual arts project with a prison outside Mexico City when he was approached about doing an art show. It sold out before the opening but a bitter dispute with the money-hungry art gallery director resulted in Campbell setting his own art ablaze.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

In 1986, a 31-year-old man used a box cutter to slash Barnett Newman’s “Whoâ€s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue III” in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. One of the main arguments his lawyer made in his defense was that the painting was a cultural provocation, and this provocation called for a reaction and got one. And that’s just the beginning of the tumultuous story of this painting.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

Have you ever been so overwhelmed when viewing an artwork that you felt compelled to kiss it? This week, Veronica and Sara take a look at multiple instances where that exact compulsion led to the defacement of famous works from Andy Warhol, Francois Boucher and Cy Twombly. As a bonus, they let us in on a little Minneapolis secret akin to the mile high club involving a sexy spoon.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

This week we discuss the fateful day a 51-year old Czech artist smashed a framed painting over Marina Abramović’s head during her major retrospective in Florence, Italy. Then Abramović boldly confronted her attacker. How did he respond? Why did he do it? Did she press charges? Listen to find out.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

Sara and Veronica return for Season 2 of Thick as Thieves! This go around each episode will focus on Art Destruction, Vandalism and the impetus behind the perpetrators actions.

To start things off, our illustrious hosts take a look at the Most Vandalizable Artwork around, Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 work, Fountain. Unsurprisingly, the Readymade art has been soiled a number of times by the likes of fellow artists, upstart academics and even one Brian Eno.

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Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.

In the season one finale of Thick as Thieves, hosts Sara and Veronica walk through the cautionary tale of poor security, resulting in a Van Gogh, a Picaso and a Gauguin all ending up in a poster tube inside a soggy bathroom, quaintly entitled The Loovre. Was it a student prank or a rebellious act towards poor security? Maybe both.

Follow Thick as Thieves on Instagram.

Music by Patrick Damphier.
Show artwork by Saskia Keultjes.