Exposed to the public for the first time a work of art intervened to the Punic plot | Spain

It is one of the first works with which the visitors of the collection are A drunk ship: echleticism, institutionality and disobedience in the eighties, of the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum, in Madrid. It is the picture Furor Penellisby the Mallorcan artist Miquel Barceló, a large canvas (255 x 197 centimeters) painted in 1983 in « Mixed Technique on Tela » that has a peculiarity with respect to the rest of the 125 works that make up the exhibition: it is the only apprehended in a police operation to a corrupt plot.

This painting is, in fact, the first of the 38 artistic objects intervened in 2015 in Switzerh The Punic plot together with the former leader of the Madrid PP Francisco Granados – who is exposed to the public since The National Court will repatriate the team to Spain in July 2022 after A long process that lasted six years. All of them were hidden in warehouses in the town of Geneva of the Natural Company Le Coulre Sa, refuge of hundreds of thousands of artistic goods of private investors.

As detailed to El País the Madrid museum, Furor Penellis It was hung on the walls of the center on November 26. Since then, he shares space in room 001.1 on floor 0 of the Nouvel building with works by the German artist Franz Erhard Walther And of the Americans Dara Birnbaum and Bruce Nauman. However, In the exhibition catalog that appears on the website The center does not appear because initially his place was occupied by the picture of another artist. The painting does not even appear in the relationship of Barceló works exhibited in the museum. The forecast is to remain exposed until next July, according to the museum. Then he will return to his stores, where he has been in deposit since December 2023 together with the rest of the artistic objects of the Punic plot waiting for the judicial procedure to end and the final destination of all of them is agreed.

In the sample, only one detail subtly reveals the visitor the links of the painting with an investigation on corruption. A few centimeters from the painting, a small white poster informs visitors of the title, authorship and pictorial technique with a cryptic phrase: “Judicial effect managed by The Office of Assets Recovery and Management (ORGA)“. It refers to the agency created at the end of 2015 by the then Ministry of Justice to administer the assets of all kinds to intervened to convicted persons. The Orga is, in fact, the formal depositary of the entire artistic treasure of the Punic plot located by the Civil Guard in Switzerland and that is composed, in addition to 38 paintings, photographs and sculptures, by 185 fountain feathers of collection. 15.6 million euros

Barceló’s painting was, in fact, one of the most valuable pieces of this booty, according to the invoice of its acquisition found during the records at the home of an involved in the Punic case. According to this document, incorporated into the summary of a cause of which one of the trials is now being held at the National Court, Marjaliza acquired it in October 2007 in the famous Christie’s auction house in Madrid for 663,970 euros. This picture and the rest of the artistic objects were used years later by the builder to simulate its sale to a Mercantile based in Singapore that, in reality, was of its property and thus bleach 4.2 million euros that it hid in Helvetic banks and wanted to transfer to Spain.

In 2016, when the National Court formally initiated the procedures with the Swiss authorities for the repatriation of all these artistic objects, the ORGA signed an agreement with the Reina Sofia Museum so that its experts authenticate the paintings and sculptures when they arrived in Spain and, later, they would swell their funds to be exposed in their rooms. The Anti -Corruption Prosecutor’s Office came to suggest dedicating a center of the center to the artistic spoil of the Punic, but the direction of the museum discarded it then. In fact, the museum’s interest was never the set of the 38 paintings, photographs and sculptures, but only 18 of them.

Specifically, in addition to Furor Penellis From Barceló, the Art Center was interested at that time in the paintings Dirty Dreamby Juan Uslé; The Astronautof chronic team; Constructive Paintingby Joaquín Torres García; Allianz Arenaby Thomas Ruff; Dark characterby Manolo Miralles; Feleby Antonio Saura; Painting 69by Rafael Canogar; Quadriculat and Tryptique au graffitisboth of Antoni Tàpies; A COUCH (HUILR UR TOILET)by Francisco Bores; Figure and Bodegón, by Antonio Clavé; Mo endby Lucio Muñoz; Untitledby José Gerrero; Without titleby Günther Förg, and an oil from Luis Feito, as well as for the sculptures S/t 2 bronze columnsby Anthony Cragg, and Oxyph-G198by Eduardo Chillida.

The rest, including the almost two hundred collection fountain Luxury watches, jewelry and vehicles He also intervened in Spain to Marjaliza after his arrest in October 2014. The money that is collected with these sales will serve part of the millionaire amount that, predictably, justice will impose the builder and leader confessed of the plot as a civil liability if it is convicted in the various judgments that he faces by the Punic case.