Art flap
The art flap was an art campaign in Vienna and Cologne that was supposed to offer an opportunity for art thieves to return stolen works anonymously. The baby hatch served as a model in hospitals.
The first artificial flap was installed in 2004 in Myrthengasse in Vienna's inner city district of Neubau . It was a converted basement window through which smaller works of art could be pushed over a striking yellow flap, which ended up in a container. The facility was part of the shipyard gallery of the Kunstwerft, which operated its “artist-run space” in the building, an exhibition space reserved for artists for design and presentations.
The reason for the action initiated by Erwin Uhrmann and Moussa Kone was the theft of the world-famous Saliera by the Renaissance sculptor Benvenuto Cellini from the nearby Kunsthistorisches Museum . The figure, stolen in May 2003, was missing for years without a trace. It was only at the beginning of 2006 that it became known that the Saliera thief had actually operated his company two streets away from the Kunstklappe, also in Vienna-Neubau, and had temporarily stored the Saliera there. However, the Saliera was not returned via the art flap.
According to the organizers, 40 stolen works of art have been handed in since the start of the project, all of which are listed online in the “Stolen Art Collection” and have been exhibited internationally several times (2005 Essl Collection, 2006 Cologne Fine Art). However, the campaign was sponsored by the initiators themselves, who occasionally made artistic objects available in a niche near the flap with the invitation to “steal”.
In the Hirschgässchen in Cologne , together with the Art Loss Register , the world's largest database for stolen works of art, the first art flap in Germany was set up on February 3, 2006. The project was ended after three months, around five works of art were submitted anonymously.
The project was also ended in Vienna after the Saliera was found in a wooded area near Zwettl in the Waldviertel . It was buried there by the art thief trying to extort ransom .