PARIS — In a rare statement of accountability following the audacious Louvre heist this week, chief curator Étienne Morel admitted that the museum’s state-of-the-art security system may have been a little too artistic for its own good.
“Our system wasn’t designed to detect intrusion,” Morel explained during a somber press conference. “It was designed to interpret it.” Installed in 2021, the “Conceptual Alarm Experience” was part of a collaboration between the museum’s modern art department and an avant-garde Berlin collective known for turning motion sensors into performance pieces.
Instead of triggering sirens or calling police, the system responded to suspicious movement by projecting a soft wash of red light and whispering, ‘But what is theft when nothing is ever really owned?’
According to early reports, the thieves made off with several priceless works after simply applauding politely and walking out through an emergency exit that played an experimental jazz riff instead of locking.
The French Ministry of Culture has since expressed regret, though not without artistic nuance. “We did not lose the art,” said Minister Claire Rousseau. “It’s merely been relocated to an unknown gallery.”
Louvre staff are now reviewing potential replacements for the system, including one that might “make some kind of sound when people steal things.” Still, Morel insists the loss was not without meaning. “Security is a form of expression,” he said. “In that sense, the heist itself was part of the installation.”
The museum has reportedly reached out to the same Berlin collective to title the now-empty gallery space. Early contenders are “The Empty Wall Where the Mona Lisa Used to Be” , “Borrowed Permanence” and “Still Life, Without the Life or the Still”.
