Art thief hits museum men's room

KANAZAWA, Ishikawa Pref. — Part of a media installation created by a Swiss visual artist has been stolen from the men's room of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, museum officials said.

Police are investigating the disappearance of the piece of artist Pipilotti Rist's work.

The installation, entitled "You Renew You," is composed of an altar with an acrylic board and crystals and a video showing the conversion of food and drink within the body into blood and tears.

The museum said Saturday that a curator noticed around 8 p.m. Friday that the half-circle acrylic board had disappeared from the work, which was partly displayed in the men's room.

The artwork, which was paired with another installation in the women's bathroom, is worth about ¥15.6 million, and visitors were free to touch it, the museum said.

"This is shocking because we have been trying to create a museum that is open to people like a park," said Yuji Akimoto, the museum director. "We want the piece back as quickly as possible."

The museum, founded in 2004 by the city of Kanazawa, has attracted over 10 million visitors over the roughly seven years to August this year.

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