Stolen from Gardner Museum: Chez Tortoni;" Fingerprint Ink on card; 1994.
My work emphasizes that the art world is not always an innocent, pristine place's where the world's most honest and esteemed elite operate, but can be a dangerous arena of treachery, crime and fraud.
"Stolen from Gardner Museum: Chez Tortoni;" Fingerprint Ink on card; 1994.“…In Sabba’s version of the stolen painting, the eyes of the gentleman were large and round and dark. He looked sadder and more contemplative than in the original. The fingerprint card asked for the arrestee’s name, height, weight, and social security number, but the spaces were blank except for the daubed re-creation of the stolen image, which rose above the form’s lines and boxes, as if it couldn’t be restricted by categorization. But the work could also be read as an argument that art itself was an illegal act, a way to transgress and transform, to keep ideas alive through robbery and rip-offs. Thieves swiped the original-Sabba made a copy.”
–Written by Ulrich Boser in his outstanding new book: The Gardner Heist; Harpers Collins; 2009. You may learn more about the author of this book at his website: http://ulrichboser.com/
