Art robbery

Of the more nefarious career choices, art robbery has to be the most interesting. It ranks third in collapsing an entire echelon of illegal trade, next only to illegal drugs and weapons trades. I imagine the stream is rather short that floats the profits from bronze metal winner to the gold and silver ones – that is, these three professions, if one would be so humble as to consider them such, are inextricably linked. Being joined at the hip, they certainly share some maleficent genes. However, unlike the escapades of narcotics and weapons trafficking, which fall into the bureaucracy of ‘the bribe or the bullet’, of which Al Capone surely knew the turn of every linchpin in this non-democratic machine, art robbery is a much more delicate and, dare I say, artistic endeavor. While it is actually a feat of engineering and immense planning, its executors would probably like to think of it as much of an art form as the paintings and sculptures and artifacts that they steal. Surely one can find a difference, however miniscule between deprogramming security cameras and sculpting the muscle tonality on the “The David,” between picking locks and painting the flourish of the vermillion border on the lip of “Mona Lisa.” While the skill set required for either profession is no less profound and requiring of meticulous attention to detail and fastidious application of knowledge, the chasm between the two is not so much a question of skill but of platitude. One profession blesses the world with creation, while one strips the world of it and liquidates it to cast metal designed to pierce another person’s body, or powder designed to alter one’s temperament. I am not so much against the art of art robbery, so long as the robbers are not against being incarcerated upon being discovered and with the knowledge that the more conventional artists should be paid handsomely upon being discovered.