BYWELLINGTON, New Zealand — 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.
Kirsha Kaechele wrote on the blog of Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art 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. 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.
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 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.
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.