This Art Student Stole a Coin From the British Museum—and Dropped It in the Donation Box
Ilê Sartuzi briefly pocketed a 17th-century coin to make a statement about looted artifacts held by the museum
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On June 18, a Brazilian artist walked into the British Museum, pocketed a 17th-century English coin and left a replica in its place. Then, instead of walking out of the museum and attempting to make a fortune, as an art thief usually does, he dropped the valuable coin in the museum’s donation box.
The stunt, performed by art student Ilê Sartuzi and filmed by his classmates, was the culmination of the artist’s MFA project at Goldsmiths, University of London. In briefly stealing the coin, Sartuzi sought to highlight the role of looting in the British Museum’s foundation.
The project, titled Sleight of Hand, is intended to open “a discussion around theft and looting in both a historical context and from a neocolonial perspective within contemporary cultural institutions,” as Sartuzi tells Hyperallergic’s Brandon Sward.
To execute the brief heist, Sartuzi walked up to a table in the British Museum that invites guests to handle historic artifacts. He picked up the silver coin, which was minted during the English Civil War, and deployed a sleight-of-hand trick used by magicians to swap it with a replica without anyone noticing. He then left the real coin in a donation box on his way out.
Over a year of preparation went into the stunt. Sartuzi visited the museum 20 times to study its layout, according to the New York Times’ Sarah Hurtes. After consulting with an art lawyer, he determined that his plan didn’t break any laws: The museum explicitly invited visitors to touch the coin, and the artifact never technically left the museum’s premises.
Connor Watson, a spokesperson for the British Museum, agrees that “there’s no issue of theft here,” as he tells the Times. Still, that doesn’t mean the museum is a fan of Sartuzi’s project. “It’s a tired argument,” Watson adds. “We’re quite open about what is looted and what is a contested object.”
Speaking with Hyperallergic, a museum spokesperson characterizes Sartuzi’s action as a “disappointing and derivative act that abuses a volunteer-led service aimed at giving visitors the opportunity to handle real items and engage with history.”
“Services like this rely on a basic level of human decency and trust, and it would be a shame to have to review the provision of these services due to actions like this,” adds the spokesperson, noting that the museum planned to alert police about the incident.
In the classroom, however, Sartuzi passed with flying colors. Richard Noble, head of Goldsmiths’ art department, tells the Times that the project impressed him and his colleagues and falls “within the remit of what we would term institutional critique.” The work received “a very high mark,” he adds.
It wasn’t until Sartuzi posted about the project on Instagram that the museum discovered its coin had been replaced with a replica. Watson tells the Times that the coin has since been located.
In recent years, the British Museum and other high-profile cultural institutions have faced mounting pressure to repatriate certain items in their collections. As these efforts have intensified, some museums around the world have made efforts to return looted artifacts and remains to their countries of origin.