What I Stole From the MoMA

inkjet print mounted on a foam board. Size: 150 x 53 cm, 2011, Edition of 5+1AP Anton Terziev. Photo: © the artist. Courtesy of the artist

"What I stole from the MoMA" represents the museum guards – the only museum objects forbidden to photograph that are however nobody's object of interest or admiration.

Shown at CONTEMPORARY TOOLS OF LABOR exhibition – ICA, Sofia, 2012

Anton Terziev’s “What I Stole from the MoMA” is a quietly subversive meditation on visibility and value within the white‐cube institution. By clandestinely photographing MoMA’s security guards—arguably the only “objects” off‐limits to cameras—Terziev reframes these anonymous sentinels as unwitting performers in the museum’s choreography.

Composed largely in a deadpan style—full‐body portraits against blank walls, muted color palettes, unselfconscious poses—the series upends the traditional gaze. Where visitors flock to masterpieces, these images draw our attention to the gatekeepers, figures we habitually ignore despite their ever‐present authority. The tack‐sharp framing and consistent lighting mimic the neutrality of gallery presentations, yet the subject matter cracks open that neutrality: institutionally sanctioned “art” is predicated on exclusion, hierarchy, and control.

The work’s greatest irony is that these guards—charged with protecting cultural treasures—become Terziev’s own “acquisitions.” He steals their image to reveal that what a museum elects not to exhibit can be as revealing as its celebrated holdings. In so doing, “What I Stole from the MoMA” invites us to reconsider who—or what—occupies center stage in our rituals of looking.

(Years later it's happend to saw Stephen Gill's photo work Gallery Warders '2003 - really nice project! Check it out.)