The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania, Australia admitted that their controversial “Ladies Lounge” exhibit contained fake paintings by Pablo Picasso made by the gallery’s curator.
Kirsha Kaechele, the museum curator, previously claimed that she inherited the Picassos shown in the exhibit. In a recent statement posted in MONA’s site, however, she admits that she forged the paintings shown in the exhibition herself.
“‘Maybe I should just make the paintings myself,’ I said. We laughed—how absurd. But then, as with many absurd ideas, I decided it was a good one. So I made the artworks, quite painstakingly, with my own hands and the (perfectly shellacked) hands of my manicurist’s niece, who is far more competent in pen and ink and thus assisted with the etching,” she wrote.”
Kaechele explained that she did have friends with actual Picassos, but that their color palette did not match the exhibit’s. She also did not want to spend the money necessary to procure the works herself.
Kaechele claimed at the time that she inherited the Picasso painting from her great-grandmother. Among those paintings is “Luncheon on the Grass, After Manet” from 1961. She said in the blog post that the actual Picasso painting she copied was hung in Paris just four months after the exhibit opened.
“I darted my gaze around the room. Are they fucking with me? I couldn’t be sure … but of the 50,000 Picasso works, this particular one?!,” she wrote. “They had to be ‘collaborating’ with me. I was awed and deeply flattered.”
She admitted that she was expecting headlines exposing her fake paintings as the exhibit built controversy, but that she also felt a sense of glee at her works being taken at face value by the press. Kaechele only admitted the forgery due to separate inquiries from the Picasso Administration and the Guardian Australia.
“I am relieved I have told you because now we can revel together in this madness. Assuming you still want to speak to me. (I hope you can forgive me.),” she wrote.
Paloma Ruiz-Picasso, the head of the Picasso Administration, said that they will not be pressing charges against Kaechele or MONA. In a statement to Australian Broadcasting Corporation, they said that they believe that MONA has learned their lesson from the debacle.
“While we can only regret this situation and the current overexposure, we believe that this matter is now closed,” they said in a statement. “We also specify that we in no way hold this against the Museum itself, nor the artist. The urgency of creation sometimes makes us forget that there are principles of law protecting the interests of authors, which apply to everyone.”
Others, however, have criticized the act, with some saying that it hurts the museum’s credibility.
“The entire episode is childish, unprofessional, and reflects poorly on MONA,” art critic Christopher Heathcote said to the Guardian. “What is being passed off as an art activist statement is the standard excuse used for attention-seeking sensationalism.”
“Kirsha is obviously a very skilled provocateur…but I feel very uncomfortable about her admission that she’s faked these Picassos and put them on display in a museum,” fellow art critic Elizabeth Fortescue said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the public felt betrayed or hoodwinked in this case, they might feel that MONA has tried to make them feel silly.”
The “Ladies Lounge” exhibit was created as commentary on the history of gender discrimination. The exhibit deliberately excluded men as part of that commentary, which led to a lawsuit that found the exhibit violated Australia’s Anti-Discrimination Act. In response, Kaechele moved them to the ladies’ toilets to allow them to continue showing the paintings to women only.
Related reading: Two Men Sentenced to Jail After Selling Art Forgeries
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