The Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania, Australia was spared the lash after it was revealed that several “Picassos” displayed in the institution’s exhibition “Ladies Lounge” were not by the Spanish master but rather were fakes by the curator and conceptual artist Kirsha Kaechele and her manicurist’s niece
The “Ladies Lounge” exhibition, which was intended to be accessible only by those who identify as women, garnered a fair share of media attention after a man from New South Wales, Jason Lau, was denied entry in 2023. That denial led to a lawsuit in which Lau said the museum was violating Tanzania’s anti-discrimination act by turning men away even though they’d bought museum tickets.
The courts agreed, and ordered the museum to make the “Ladies Lounge” accessible to every gender. Kaechele, who is married to the Mona’s owner David Walsh, skirted that decision by moving the exhibition into the one place in the museum men wouldn’t willingly enter—the women’s restroom, including the Faux-casso paintings.
In a blog post on Mona’s website explaining the fraud, Kaechele wrote that the exhibition was in part created to ‘”drive men as crazy as possible…” but also to provide “a beautiful space for women to enjoy themselves.” The best way to accomplish the first mandate, Kaechele says, was to fill the exhibition with “invaluable” objects—all of which were mock-ups and replicas, including plastic jewelry presented as family heirlooms and a mink rug, ostensibly made by Princess Mary’s royal furrier, that was actually made of polyester. And of course, the Faux-casso paintings.
In a statement given to The Art Newspaper, the Succession Picasso’s head of legal affairs Claudia Andrieu said the artist’s estate reached out to the museum, which “immediately reacted, expressing their regrets and declaring themselves ready to remove these paintings from view.” “Although we can do nothing but regret this situation and the current exhibition, we consider from our side that this case is closed from here on in,” she added.