WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — They were billed as artworks by Pablo Picasso, paintings so valuable that an Australian art museum’s decision to display them in an exhibition restricted to women visitors provoked a gender discrimination lawsuit. The paintings again prompted international headlines when the gallery re-hung them in a women’s restroom to sidestep a legal ruling that said men could not be barred from viewing them.
But the artworks at the center of the uproar were not really by Picasso or the other famed artists billed as their creators, it emerged this week when the curator of the women-only exhibition admitted she had painted them herself.
Kirsha Kaechele wrote on the blog of Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) on Wednesday that she was revealing herself as the works’ creator after receiving questions from a reporter and the Picasso Administration in France about their authenticity.
But they had been displayed for more than three years before their provenance was questioned, she said, even though she had accidentally hung one of the fake paintings upside down.
“I imagined that a Picasso scholar, or maybe just a Picasso fan, or maybe just someone who googles things, would visit the Ladies Lounge and see that the painting was upside down and expose me on social media,” Kaechele wrote. But no one did.
The saga began when Kaechele created a women-only area at MONA in 2020 for visitors to “revel in the pure company of women" and as a statement on their exclusion from male-dominated spaces throughout history.
The so-called Ladies Lounge offered high tea, massages and champagne served by male butlers, and was open to anyone who identified as a woman. Outlandish and absurd title cards were displayed alongside the fake paintings, antiquities and jewelry that was “quite obviously new and in some cases plastic,” she added.
The lounge had to display “the most important artworks in the world,” Kaechele wrote this week, in order for men “to feel as excluded as possible.”
It worked. MONA — famous in Australia for its strange and subversive exhibitions and events — was ordered by the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in March to stop refusing men entry to the Ladies Lounge after a complaint from a male gallery patron who was upset at being barred from the space during a 2023 visit.
“The participation by visitors in the process of being permitted or refused entry is part of the artwork itself,” tribunal Deputy President Richard Grueber wrote in his decision, which found the exhibition was discriminatory.
Grueber ruled that the man had suffered a disadvantage, in part because the artworks in the Ladies Lounge were so valuable. Kaechele had described them to the hearing as “a carefully curated selection of paintings by the world’s leading artists, including two paintings that spectacularly demonstrate Picasso’s genius.”
The tribunal ordered MONA to cease refusing men entry. In his ruling, Grueber also lambasted a group of women who had attended in support of Kaechele wearing matching business attire and had silently crossed and uncrossed their legs in unison throughout the hearing. One woman “was pointedly reading feminist texts,” he wrote, and the group left the tribunal “in a slow march led by Ms Kaechele to the sounds of a Robert Palmer song.”
Their conduct was “inappropriate, discourteous and disrespectful, and at worst contumelious and contemptuous,” Grueber added.
Rather than admit men to the exhibit, Kaechele -- who is married to the gallery’s owner, David Walsh -- installed a working toilet in the space, turning it into a women’s restroom in order to exploit a legal loophole to allow the refusal of men to continue.
International news outlets covered the development in May, apparently without questioning that a gallery would hang Picasso paintings in a public restroom. However, the Guardian reported Wednesday that it had asked Kaechele about the authenticity of the work, prompting her confession.
A spokesperson for MONA told The Associated Press that the gallery would not supply more detail about the letter Kaechele said she had received from the Picasso Administration. When the AP asked MONA to confirm that the statements in Kaechele's blog post, titled “Art is Not Truth: Pablo Picasso," were accurate, the spokesperson, Sara Gates-Matthews, said the post was “truthfully Kirsha’s admission.”
The Picasso Administration, which manages the late Spanish artist’s estate, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I’m flattered that people believed my great-grandmother summered with Picasso at her Swiss chateau where he and my grandmother were lovers when she threw a plate at him for indiscretions (of a kind) that bounced off his head and resulted in the crack you see inching through the gold ceramic plate in the Ladies Lounge,” Kaechele wrote this week, referring to the title card on one painting.
"The real plate would have killed him — it was made of solid gold. Well, it would have dented his forehead because the real plate is actually a coin.”
In this undated photo provided by the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), a painting is displayed in the women's bathroom at the museum in Hobart, Australia. Kirsha Kaechele, an Australian art museum curator, has divulged on July 9, 2024, that she was the creator of three paintings that she presented as works by Pablo Picasso -- and which prompted a gender discrimination case in Tasmania when she only permitted women gallery patrons to view them. (Eden Meure/MONA via AP)
In this undated photo provided by the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Kirsha Kaechele poses with a painting in Hobart, Australia. Kaechele has divulged on July 9, 2024, that she was the creator of three paintings that she presented as works by Pablo Picasso -- and which prompted a gender discrimination case in Tasmania when she only permitted women gallery patrons to view them. (Jesse Hunniford/MONA via AP)
Four Palestinians were killed, including three teenagers, and another seven were wounded by Israeli fire during a military raid in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said Tuesday, as world leaders tried to stop tensions in the Middle East from boiling over into a regional war.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack early Monday on northern Israel that the Israeli military said wounded two Israeli troops. The violence came amid fears of an all-out regional war following the previous week's killings of a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon and Hamas’ top political leader in Iran.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months during the war in Gaza.
Leaders in Egypt and Turkey say they are exhausting all avenues possible to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from becoming a wider regional conflict. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet over the weekend that Israel is already in a “multi-front war” with Iran and its proxies.
The head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened Israel on Monday over the assassination of Haniyeh, warning that Israel was “digging its own grave” with its actions against Hamas. Israel's defense minister says the military is ready for a “swift transition to offense.”
Here’s the latest:
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian officials say four Palestinians were killed, including three teenagers, and another seven were wounded by Israeli fire during a military raid in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday that the raid was carried out overnight in the village of Aqaaba in the northern West Bank. Those killed included two 19-year-olds and a 14-year-old. Separately, the Islamic Jihad militant group reported heavy fighting with the army in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, a frequent flashpoint.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel has carried out near-daily military raids across the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the ongoing war there. Palestinians from the West Bank have also carried out a number of attacks on Israelis.
The Health Ministry says over 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war. Most were killed during military arrest raids and violent protests.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercising limited control over population centers. Over 500,000 Jewish settlers, who live in scores of settlements across the territory that most of the international community views as illegal or illegitimate, have Israeli citizenship.
SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday condemned as “abhorrent” an Iranian ambassador’s social media comment on Israel.
Albanese said ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi had been called in for a meeting with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials over his recent post on the social media platform X.
Sadeghi cites Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin advocating that “wiping out the Zionist plague out of the holy lands of Palestine happens no later than 2027.” Sadeghi added: “Looking forward to such a heavenly & divine promise Inshaa-Allah.” The Arabic expression means “if God wills.”
Albanese told reporters: “I make it clear: There’s no place for the sort of comments that were made online on social media by the Iranian ambassador.”
“They’re abhorrent. And they are hateful, they are antisemitic and they have no place,” Albanese added.
Asked by a reporters if the ambassador should be expelled from Australia, Albanese did not directly answer.
The Iranian Embassy in Australia did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the state memorial for Ze'ev Jabotinsky, at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (Naama Grynbaum/Pool Photo via AP)
Workers carry a body, returned by Israel, to a cemetery in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. A Palestinian official says Israel has returned more than 80 bodies to the Gaza Strip. The identities of the deceased and the cause of death were not immediately known. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
An Israeli shelling hits an area in Lebanon next to the Israeli-Lebanese border at the Galilee region as seen from the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Passengers whose flights were cancelled, wait at the departure terminal ground of Rafik Hariri International Airport, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. Turkey and Japan became the latest countries to urge their citizens to leave Lebanon amid rising tensions with Israel following last week's airstrike in Beirut that killed a top Hezbollah military commander. Fears of an escalation in the simmering conflict between Hezbollah and Israel have prompted some airlines to cancel flights to Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A poster of the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an assassination last week, hangs on a mosque building in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. Iran has vowed to respond with "power and decisiveness" to the targeted killing of Hamas' top political leader, which it blamed on Israel. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Family, friends and supporters of Ariel Bibas, who is held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, mark his fifth birthday in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. Ariel Bibas, who along with his 1-year-old brother Kfir, has become a symbol of the struggle to free the hostages who remain captive in Gaza. He loved all of the superheroes, and Batman especially, said a relative who wore a shirt with Batman on it in Ariel's honor. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
A Palestinian woman watches an operation by the Israeli military in Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024. The Israeli military said it struck five suspected terrorists in a vehicle on their way to carry out an attack. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Family, friends and supporters of Ariel Bibas, who is held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, mark his fifth birthday in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. Ariel Bibas, who along with his 1-year-old brother Kfir, has become a symbol of the struggle to free the hostages who remain captive in Gaza. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
FILE - The symbol of the United Nations is displayed outside the Secretariat Building, Feb. 28, 2022, at United Nations Headquarters. On Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, the U.N. announced that it fired nine staff members from its agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, after an internal investigation found they may have been involved in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
Workers carry a body returned by Israel to a cemetery in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. A Palestinian official says Israel has returned more than 80 bodies to the Gaza Strip. The identities of the deceased and the cause of death were not immediately known. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
