A Russian artist who lives in France has said he will destroy masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt and Andy Warhol with acid if Julian Assange dies in prison.
Andrei Molodkin said he had collected 16 works of art, which he estimated to be worth more than $45 million (£42.77 million) collectively, in a 29-tonne safe with an “extremely caustic” substance.
Inside the safe are boxes of artwork and a pneumatic pump connecting two white barrels – one with acid powder and the other with an accelerant that could cause a chemical reaction strong enough to turn the safe’s contents into rubble, Molodkin claims.
The Wikileaks founder is wanted in America on charges of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information after publishing hundreds of thousands of leaked documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 52-year-old man denies any wrongdoing.
He has been held at London’s Belmarsh Prison for almost five years and his final appeal will be heard at London’s High Court on 20 and 21 February.
Assange’s supporters say he faces 175 years in prison if extradited. His lawyer says the Australian’s life is “at risk” if the appeal fails.
Molodkin told Sky News:
In our catastrophic time – when we have so many wars – to destroy art is much more taboo than to destroy the life of a person. Since Julian Assange has been in prison… freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of information has started to be more and more repressed. I have this feeling very strongly now.
The Russian artist has refused to reveal which pieces of art are inside the safe but says it includes works by Picasso, Rembrandt, Warhol, Jasper Johns, Jannis Kounellis, Robert Rauschenberg, Sarah Lucas, Santiago Sierra, Jake Chapman, and Molodkin himself, among others.
I believe if something happened and we erased some masterpiece, it will be erased from history – nobody will know which kind of piece it was. We have all the documentation and we photographed all of them.
The artist said the safe will be locked on Friday, and it is currently stored in Molodkin’s studio in the south of France, but he plans to move it to a museum.
Molodkin says he would feel “no emotion” if the art was destroyed because “freedom is much more important”.
Stella Assange, who has two kids with her husband, asked Sky News:
Which is the greater taboo – destroying art or destroying human life?
