WEBVTT - The Day a Dalí Escaped From Prison 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:27.440 Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.560 the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.319 much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:39.200 the myth Legend, our super producer, Max, the Surreal Williams, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:44.360 the Triple Hey Max. Noel and I had a question 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:49.520 for you based on our earlier conversation in our two 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.120 part series on potatoes. So potatoes are one of the 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.360 seven things you can eat with a condition? What are 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:57.120 the other six? 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:05.080 Frozen? Chicken and uh exclusively, Well, I have to frost. 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.640 I can't have any I can't have any meats that 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.080 are aged like so Noel, when we were at that 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:16.200 lovely steakhouse in the Bahamas, Marcus Sandilson's restaurant, Marcus, you 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.560 got the aged one. I got the fresh one, because 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:20.720 I can't have anything aged. 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:22.360 Age. 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:24.880 They don't age chicken. Though you can have fresh chicken, 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.000 it doesn't have to be frozen. All right, Okay, give 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.039 us the last sorry, I good question question. 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:36.600 So yeah, yeah, and let's see gluten gluten free bread, rice, pain. 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.679 I can have pain, pain and sadness. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.160 Oh and those last two don't count, I think. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:47.000 And uh, blueberries. 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:54.120 Okay, okay, I suspect our producer is freestylied a little bit, 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:54.960 but we love it. 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:55.520 Definitely. 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:57.960 Can drink coffee that is nol bread. 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:02.480 Coffee is is actually a questionable thing, but there is 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.200 some standards. I cannot, I can, I cannot go without 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.560 my caffeine. I was off of coffee for six months 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:10.640 at one point, actually gross, horrible. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:15.320 Why so that is Noel Brown, none other They called 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.360 me bed bullying for tax purposes. We are thrilled to 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:26.520 be joined with none other than Salvador Dolli. Uh did I, Noel? 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:31.040 Did I tell you when I was I was in 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:34.520 a situation that required me to be in Spain and 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:38.639 I found a museum for Salvador Dolli and they were 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.960 actually selling sketches that the man had made. They were 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:49.359 quite expensive. I did suspect money laundering. Uh, and thank goodness. 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.880 My girlfriend, well, we still fight about it. She talked 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.880 me off the ledge. She said, how much money do 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.840 podcasters make? Do you really want to buy and original DOLLI? 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.240 Well, you know you got to park your money somewhere, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.440 and why not park it in a sketch, a tossed 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:07.760 off sketch? Because as we know, our man Dolli was 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.040 nothing if not a capitalist. Oh yes, yeah, yeah, you 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:12.960 know it's funny. I actually found myself in Spain as well. 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:14.800 I went to a I didn't go to a Doli 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.160 museum or exhibit, but I went to this really lovely 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.920 restaurant called Baboo that was named after his pet Ocelot 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.760 and was very Salvador Dali coded in its decor and 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.040 was delightful. And we had a lovely waiter who gave 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.240 us all kinds of tips and tricks on places to 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:35.400 go see in Barcelona, and it was fantastic. And yeah, Baboo, 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.640 the pet Oscelot. This is an interesting man, Salvador Dolli, 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:39.640 Oh yes. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:44.240 Very interested in himself, as we will find. We are 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.160 putting on our ridiculous crime hats to examine one of 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.280 our favorite artists and one of our favorite stories about him. 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:57.200 Thanks to our research associate Maria, we have learned that 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:03.120 for a long time at Rikers Island, yes that Riker's Island, 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:08.800 the jail, there was an original drawing a piece by 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:13.360 Salvador Dali that hung around in one of the worst 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:17.800 places in the world for decades. Like people didn't appreciate it. 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.160 They were throwing coffee cups at it. They stuck it 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.680 next to a vending machine. But get this, fellow ridiculous historians. 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.080 This piece was stolen in two thousand and three from 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.839 inside of the walls of one of the country's most 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:39.560 notorious correctional facilities. So as we're as we're exploring this, 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.719 our three big questions are how did it get there? 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:47.320 To start with, who stole the painting, who has it now? 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.279 And a little bit of light foreshadowing. We know two 0:04:52.440 --> 0:05:02.520 of those answers. So Noel, can you really put us 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.680 in the moment? Maybe take us back to nineteen sixty five? 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.760 Boy, could I ever February twenty sixth, to be precise, 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.400 a Friday of a morning of a Friday, A morning 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:14.560 of a Friday, on a Friday, which was the name 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.400 I think? Yeah, radioheads used to be called on a Friday, 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:20.720 So this could have been where they got their inspiration 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.080 for that. Sure, probably not, who knows. Salvador Dali woke 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.520 up and he was a little snuffily, a little fluish influence, 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.040 was it? Yeah? He wasn't feeling, he wasn't feeling, he 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.240 was feeling out of sorts. He was supposed to spend 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.080 the afternoon hanging out with prisoners at Rikers Island, like 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.400 you do if you're a famous artist. Department of Corrections 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:44.400 Commissioner Anna Moscowitz Cross believe that part of rehabilitating prisoners 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.120 should include art, which I fully support and I think 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.599 that's great, and theater, which I also fully support. There's 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.640 that incredible film Sing Sing that came out recently about 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.039 programs in prisons to you know, you know, incorporate the 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.240 arts into the day lives of inmates and really really 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.080 an interesting history that goes far farther back than one 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.279 might think of the arts having a place in the 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:13.240 prison system. So Dolly found himself on her schedule to paint, 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.040 to have a little painting sessh with the inmates, ultimately 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.279 part of a publicity campaign for art the Art in 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.760 Prison program. Dolly was super into it because it would 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.400 be a day of himself. It would be Dolly Day 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.159 at Rikers and he was all about that whenever he 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.679 could get a chance to be the center of attention. 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:39.039 Yeah, I'm just I'm because I as you know, guys, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:45.200 I am I have the dubious order of being related 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:50.960 to a sculptor and artist of newe regionally like the 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.560 kind of guy who hangs out with US presidents. And 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:58.440 he was exactly a Dolly. So this feels very familiar. 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:00.640 You know, there are so many many people in the 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.520 world where you say, hey, do you want to talk 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.880 about something, and they say, yeah, if it's me, we 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:08.039 can hang out all day. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.680 So he as the son of a of a relatively 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:17.440 well known opera singer, very very very diva hard same yeah, yeah, 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.320 I just loved to hold court. As they say, well, so, yeah, 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:23.960 Dolly was no exception. And in the in the world 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.240 of somewhat megalomaniacal artists. 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:32.560 Yeah, we we can only imagine without having met Sally ourselves. 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:38.680 We can only imagine that he probably said, look, I 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.440 have a thing where I can talk about myself. I'm 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.800 going to be cheered and celebrated, kind of like Johnny 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:49.160 Cash play in Fulsome County or Fulsome Prison Blues in 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:54.640 a jail. So he thinks he's gonna arrive at the 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.960 island by boat with his wife and as you said, 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:04.040 his pet asolot baboo, his sweet baboo, his sweet baboo. 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.720 But unfortunately, despite the great appeal to his ego, our 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:13.720 buddy Salvador has to cancel because he has influenced and 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:19.760 in place of the actual appearance, he sends along as 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:25.120 an apology or as a door prize, a huge drawing. 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.120 It is four feet by five feet and it is 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:34.040 a drawing of Jesus Christ being crucified. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.160 Yeah, and you know, Dali had a pretty cool period. 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.640 Maybe it was throughout his career, but if you look 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:46.119 up religious iconography Salvador Dali, he does some very interesting 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:51.200 spins on some very famous religious imagery that some might 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.080 argue border on the sacriligious. I mean you could even 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.559 say that, like, for example, the Goudy Church in Barcelona, 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:03.600 the Cigratta Familia is so weird looking and it's depiction 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.840 of religious iconography that when you walk through it you 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.480 almost like get are, like, Jesu Louise, what does the 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.000 Pope think of this? It's like it's a lot. It's 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.320 almost like like, you know, Jesus filtered through the lens 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:21.240 of like the Fifth Element or something like that sci fi. Yeah, 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.040 I'm sure the Pope nos they finally finished the cigarette Familia. 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.000 I believe I was able to tour that place as well, 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.280 and it really is like walking through some sort of 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:33.560 hr Giger church. Very very unusual, but similar to the 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:38.200 way Dolly approached religious iconography. So he did send this 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.880 painting through after, I believe, just kind of dashing it 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.400 off from his hotel room in New York City. 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:49.560 Yeah, and it's India ink on paper. It's got a 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:55.360 small it's got a small bit of other mediums on it. 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.520 And people will call it untitled. Other people call it 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.280 the a Fiction of Christ. Some will call it Christ 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.440 on the Cross. But the important thing is that this 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:11.480 is a distinct painting. It is far different from his 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:16.559 nineteen fifty one painting Christ of Saint John on the Cross, 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:21.000 And technically it's a drawing, this one we're talking about. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.800 You can obviously see Christ of Saint John of the 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:30.800 Cross anywhere anywhere you find yourself on the internet. Our 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:35.680 buddy Dolly. He has a personal rap an agent, you 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.080 could think of it that way, named Nico. And Nico 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.400 takes this drawing, this mixed media work to the prison 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:48.560 to Rikers Island and shares the following message from Salvador 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.120 to the inmates. We'll read it in full. Your artist, 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.040 don't think your life is finished for you with art, 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.480 you have to always feel free. And he had signed 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:08.880 it himself for the dining room of the prisoner's Rikers Island, SD. 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:11.400 He misspelled dining. 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.040 Oh dear, that's you know what. He's an artist. Maybe 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:16.560 he just was reinventing the word. 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.800 I'm sure it was great for him, Noel, I'm sure 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:24.800 it was. For about twenty years. This painting hung, or 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.880 this mixed media art piece, if we're being technical, hung 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.760 in the cafeteria in the mess hoole in nineteen eighty one, 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.600 as we mentioned at the top, and inmate threw a 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.280 coffee cup at it. It broke the stained glass. And 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:45.080 now it's even more mixed media because now we have 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.319 coffee stains on the drawing. They move it away from 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:55.440 the cafeteria. Same year, Warden named Alexander Jenkins a new guy. 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.640 New Warden. He arrives at Rikers and he says, I 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.400 don't know if this is a real Salvador Dolly drawing 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:05.800 or if it's a fake. 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.600 Yeah, it's true, because there weren't any records on the painting, 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:12.960 and for all I know, he said it could have 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:17.480 been an inmates copy of a Dolly. And then it 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:22.080 was subsequently sent out for authentication and appraisal. It came 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.840 back with an appraisal of around one hundred thousand dollars, 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.440 but the painting's last known appraisal in nineteen eighty five 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:29.760 put its value a little closer to one hundred and 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:30.240 eighty k. 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:35.160 Pretty good money, right, pretty good money. And the next 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.200 thing our buddy Alexander Jenkins, the new Warden does is 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.080 approve the Dolly piece to be shipped off to a 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:49.480 Virginia gallery. It's on temporary display in ort exhibit centered 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:54.480 around prison art. It does return to rikers. It's boxed 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.839 up in a storage crate and get this, They hide 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.600 it in the basement and forget about it. It is 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.480 not until years and years later that a prison guard 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:10.120 sees this in a trash can one day and says, hey, 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.120 that's kind of a cool drawing. I should take this 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.000 out of the trash for sure. 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.760 It's probably a good idea, Ben. I want to take 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.400 a little moment to just talk about how you know, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:27.679 Dolly is an early example of the kind of insane 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:33.719 over inflation and kind of influencer nature of the art market, 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.640 This personality driven kind of pop art. 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:38.760 You know, He's like kind of he jumped out of 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.480 the second story window to land in the bushes to 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:42.120 get attention. 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.800 Well, yeah, exactly. He was as much a media personality 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:50.560 as he was a painter and artist, much like Andy 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:55.680 Warhol and his factory, you know, art studio, you know, 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.440 during the second half of the twentieth century. So the 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:04.280 fact that there's all the speculation around what is ultimately 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.640 kind of a dashed off piece of work is fascinating 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:09.240 to me. And then of course we carry that on 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.360 into the modern day with stuff like Banksy and you know, 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:17.200 the wildly speculative nature of art as stores of wealth. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.760 Check out our Freeport episode. Check out our Money Laundry episodes, 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.520 both available on stuff they don't want you to know, 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.240 all right, So this guy, our anonymous hero of the story, 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:36.920 this prison guard saves priceless drawing from the trash. They 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:41.320 rehang it, they frame it, They place it under plexiglass, 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.120 which is much more difficult to break with us frame 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.600 coffee cup and this splash guard. 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:50.200 It is so weird. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.480 They put it next to a vending machine in the 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:58.080 lobby of the Eric M. Taylor Detention Center that is 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.480 one of the jails in the overall Rikers complex, And 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.720 I gotta ask you guys this Ma's hopping on this 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:11.360 as well. UHL, Max. We would obviously all three of 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:15.440 us love to have something named after us. You know, 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.840 we'd love to have a library, a wing of an 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:24.640 Ivy League institution. How would you feel about the Nole C. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:26.600 Brown Detention Center? 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.800 Love it? My legacy solidified. 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.960 So there's there's this place in South Carolina where you 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:34.720 get off the highway. 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:36.240 It's like one of these places where it's fishing. Get 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.160 off and her weak cass and there. 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.320 Is a bridge and it's just like you know, there's 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.240 like three signs and there's like the first guys like 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.040 named after the road. Second guy is a smaller sign 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.600 is named after the bridge. And then there's a third 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.640 guy with an even smaller sign. It's like like Noel C. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.520 Brown Sidewalk, Noel Sea Brown's scenic overlook. That's what I'm 0:15:57.560 --> 0:15:58.040 hoping for. 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:02.280 I love the idea as well of UMAX having a 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.280 sign that we could just hang up around interstates that 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.080 says Max Williams presents exactly. 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.600 You know, I take it back not seeing it overlook. 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.560 I would like the Nole C. Brown rest area. There 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.000 we go and bench there we go. 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.840 Please note that at this point the picture of Dolly 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:27.560 is accompanied by a plaque, and the plaque says, this 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:31.480 is an original painting or an original work by the 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.480 actual facts. Salvador Dolly, shout out more and vocal bomb. 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.920 This is worth one million US dollars. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:41.760 Wait a minute, when did that happen? 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.320 That's just what they said. Man, it's art, it's money laundry, 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.760 of course, whatever you believe, whatever you think is worth bait. Also, 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.680 we have to mention that this drawing was originally intended 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.960 as a gift to the unfortunate inmates of rikers, but 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:02.200 because it is in the life of this detention center, 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.000 the prisoners can no longer see it. 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:07.080 You know, it's so funny too, not to harp on 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.200 the whole like art market thing, but that's so interesting 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.240 because it is ultimately, you know, the materials are of 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.800 very little value. It is all about the name. And 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.719 for something like this, it's not even a matter of like, well, 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.360 it took this many hours to make. It's all about 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.240 the name of the individual and how famous they were 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.359 in the cachet surrounding their kind of cult of personality, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.080 and what someone's willing to pay for it because I've 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.119 been kind of getting into like watches and stuff lately 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.639 and just fascinated by that market, which can also be 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.000 wildly speculative. But certain watches are made of precious materials 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:43.560 that themselves hold value. Not the case for a painting 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:45.680 like this or a drawing like this. More the case 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.959 with maybe, like say, a sculpture made of gold or 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.280 made of some sort of precious material. But this is 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:55.879 literally just kind of like a very low fig you 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:56.399 know what. 0:17:58.119 --> 0:17:58.440 I mean. 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:03.639 Come the f all one afternoon at your hotel because 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:05.639 you have the flu and you don't want to show 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.720 up to your career day. That's what happened. 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:22.280 There's a group of prison employees. For anybody who hasn't 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:27.320 been in America's infamous incarceration system. There is a hierarchy 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:32.359 of inmates. So if you are a good boy, if 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:37.200 you're behaving, you will have the opportunity in theory to 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:42.560 acquire more responsibilities, right, a little bit more agency. You 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.480 can become an attendee, You can become a guy works 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.280 in the kitchen, right, or a guy who helps out 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.640 with the admin of the place. Shout out Shawshank rediction. 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:58.720 These prison employees conspire to take this work by Dolly 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:04.359 during an unscheduled fire drill. They conducted it inside that 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:09.120 Eric M. Taylor Detention Center, and that's unscheduled. In quotes, 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.280 by the way, yeah, thank you, Maria. Those are very 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:16.160 snarky quotes, and they are earned. They did a heist 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:22.240 inside of prison. It's one am, it's March first, it's 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:27.280 two thousand and three. It's a BS Malarkey fire drill, 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:32.639 and it is helpful because it clears out anybody who's 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.760 not in on the heist. They have to leave the lobby. 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:39.240 We've been in fire drills, like when the three of 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:44.960 us went into the office every day to record or 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.760 to do our jobs. We always knew there was something 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.919 conspiratorial about the fire drill. Did you ever get that 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.240 sneaky message a few minutes before what like. 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.760 The inside scoop? Yeah, I don't know. I wasn't on that. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:00.840 I wasn't not on that email right now. I do 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.280 remember though, when we used to work in Buckhead at 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.359 the old House stuff Works office, we had a fire 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:10.720 drill one three. We all went outside and everyone was 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.920 like given ice cream. It felt very middle school coded. 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:15.639 It was great. It was a field trip. 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:20.920 Basically, yeah, so these guys do this heist, this field trip. 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:25.840 Two thousand inmates get locked down and one of the 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:32.160 co conspirators is a lookout. Another is monitoring the fire drill, 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:36.719 so we really have two lookouts. And while they're looking 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:37.280 out the. 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.440 Main lookout and then the fire marshal yes, right right, 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:42.399 trust safety monitor. 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:47.879 Yes, it's our main takeaway. But old, this third person, 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.679 this third individual, this is our hitter. This is our 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:56.200 heavy mover, this is our operator. This third person removes 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:00.639 the drawing and replaces it with the help of a 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:06.479 fourth conspirator. They've taken the original drawing by Salvador Dolly 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:14.200 and they have replaced it with a very temu coded replica. 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:16.280 Yeah, I'm trying to get a look at it. We 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.119 haven't really described We did a little bit. We described 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.199 the text on it. But boy, oh boy, when I 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.440 said when we say dashed off, we mean dashed off, 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:31.080 it is, you know, it is. It's like he's splattered 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.600 India ink on it. It's kind of cool. Actually, now 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:36.840 I'm sort of taking it back because there is a 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.159 semblance of the shape of Christ in these sort of 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.800 Ralph Stedman s ink splatters and then in the center 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.639 there is a crown of thorns, and the gauche I believe, 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.359 which is the other material that is used, sort of 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:54.720 creates this smudge in the shape of Jesus's head, and 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.680 the cross is more just sort of like negative space 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:04.560 that's created by more aush framing the edges of the cross. 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.720 And he's drawing clearly it's inked out like the sketch 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.520 of a cross. It's like seeing a comic book penciler's 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:12.359 work before polarists get in. 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.840 So I could see how one might think it's one 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:17.760 of those things where you hear people say, oh, my 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.080 kid could have done that. And if you look at 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:24.399 the other Christ depiction that we mentioned from Dolly Christ 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.080 of Saint John on Lacrosse, it is much more in 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.680 the style of a classical painting. The dude could paint, 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:33.439 but he also was one of these fascinating sort of 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.199 more like I guess proto pop artists that while he 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:38.840 had the training, he also kind of got off on 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:43.600 doing some more bombastic things that he could could get 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:46.360 away with a lot and call it a piece of art. 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:48.720 And this is one of those examples. 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.240 So I imagine it reminds me of Picasso actually, because 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:57.199 it is a hyper realistic artist in his earlier days 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:00.800 and then like Colonel Kurtz in a pot, now he 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:03.159 just went off the deep end. 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:05.439 Funny you should say that, Ben. I was just in 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:08.240 New York City a week or two ago, and I 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:11.800 went to an exhibit at the moment of the work 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.480 of Marcel Duchamp, who many of us probably know from 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:19.040 like art class or like, you know, humanities in college. 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:21.800 He was the guy that wrote he signed a toilet 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.240 seat as our mutt, and then that was sort of 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:29.679 like the first example of like found object, sort of 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:33.359 super super out there, outrey kind of modern art. But 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.840 this exhibit was super cool because it traced his whole 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:41.240 trajectory from his earliest works into the more outlandish kind 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:43.720 of like okay, now I'm just hanging snowshovels from the 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:46.439 ceiling by a piece of rope. His early stuff was 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:51.160 like mega expressionistic kind of landscapes and you know, much 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:56.160 more classically trained looking pieces. So Dolly was much from 0:23:56.200 --> 0:23:59.440 that same tradition. So you could see how the inmates 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:01.760 or the folks that we're pulling off this heist might 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:04.080 have looked at this original work and said, ah, we 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:06.080 could do that. I could do that, but they kind 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:08.440 of couldn't because they tried to replace it with a replica, 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:10.880 and even folks on the crew were like, this, this 0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:12.520 isn't it. 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:16.560 This is not on. Yeah, it was. It was not 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:20.880 the best replica or the best forgery. And again, these 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:24.800 folks are working with limited materials. So just a few 0:24:24.920 --> 0:24:29.080 hours after they complete the heist, there's a guard who 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:33.320 is off duty and is you know, pretty much on 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:36.800 his way home. He's walking through the lobby of this 0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:41.080 tailored detention center. He looks at the Dolly as he 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:47.560 does every shift because he likes art, and he notices, hey, 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:52.320 this is different. Here's where they screwed up. So the 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:56.760 replica is not the same size as the original. It's 0:24:56.800 --> 0:25:00.399 a lot smaller. It is made with oil paint. It 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:04.000 is on canvas, It is not in a frame, and 0:25:04.400 --> 0:25:10.600 they had literally painted like an impression of a brown 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:15.960 frame around this drawing, which seemed to this guy childlike. 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:20.960 It was not mounted, it couldn't be hung correctly. So 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:26.960 they stole this plexiglass framed mounted piece by Salvador Dolly 0:25:27.440 --> 0:25:31.159 and they literally get this, folks. They stapled up the 0:25:31.240 --> 0:25:35.720 replica click click click click. They just needed enough time 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:36.359