Acid to destroy masterpieces by Picasso, Rembrandt and Warhol if Julian Assange dies in prison, artist claims
An artist has defended plans to destroy masterpieces by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt and Andy Warhol with acid if Julian Assange dies in prison.
Andrei Molodkin says he has gathered 16 works of art – which he estimates are collectively worth more than $45m (£42.77m) – in a 29-tonne safe with an “extremely corrosive” substance.
Inside the vault are boxes containing the art and a pneumatic pump connecting two white barrels – one with acid powder and the other with an accelerator that could cause a chemical reaction strong enough to turn the safe’s contents to debris, Molodkin claims.
Julian Assange in 2017 – and the safe purported to contain the art that will be destroyed if he dies in prison. Pics: AP/The Foundry Studio
The project – called “Dead Man’s Switch” – is being backed by Assange’s wife Stella, whose husband is awaiting his final appeal against being extradited to the US, where he faces charges under the Espionage Act.
The Wikileaks founder is wanted in America over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The 52-year-old denies any wrongdoing.
He has been held in London’s Belmarsh prison for almost five years and will have his final appeal heard at the High Court in London on February 20 and 21.
Assange’s supporters say he faces 175 years in prison if he is extradited. His lawyer claims the Australian’s life “is at risk” if the appeal fails.
Stella Assange is supporting Andrei Molodkin’s ‘Dead Man’s Switch’ project. Pic: PA
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 dissident 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.
The works of art are being contained in boxes, the artist says. Pic: Andrei Molodkin/The Foundry Studio
“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,” he says.
“We have all the documentation and we photographed all of them.”
The safe will be locked on Friday and it is being kept at Molodkin’s studio in the south of France, the artist says, but he plans for it to be moved to a museum.
Explaining how the “Dead Man’s Switch” works, he says a 24-hour countdown timer must be reset before it reaches zero to prevent the corrosive material from being released.
Molodkin’s sketches for the Dead Man’s Switch project. Pic: Andrei Molodkin/The Foundry Studio
He says this will be done by “someone close” to Assange confirming he is still alive in prison each day – which will mean the timer can be reactivated.
If Assange is released from prison, the works of art will be returned to their owners, Molodkin adds.
He admits “many collectors are really scared” about the acid going off accidentally but insists the work has been done “very professionally”.
Molodkin says he would feel “no emotion” if the art was destroyed because “freedom is much more important”.
Artist Andrei Molodkin
Giampaolo Abbondio, who owns an art gallery in Milan, says he has provided the Picasso artwork for the safe and has signed a non-disclosure agreement preventing him from revealing which one.
He said his first response when he was asked to take part was: “No way”, but he was convinced by Molodkin, who he has known since 2008.
“It got me round to the idea that it’s more relevant for the world to have one Assange than an extra Picasso, so I decided to accept,” Mr Abbondio told Sky News.
“Let’s say I’m an optimist and I’ve lent it. If Assange goes free, I can have it back.
“Picasso can vary from 10,000 to 100 million but I don’t think it’s the number of zeros that makes it more relevant when we’re talking about a human life.”
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June 2022: Why is Assange wanted by US?
Artist Franko B says he has provided one of the works which will be kept in the safe.
“It’s a beautiful piece… it’s one of my best pieces,” he told Sky News.
“I thought it was important that I committed something I care about. I didn’t donate something that I found in the corner of my studio. I donated a piece of work that is very dear to me that talks about freedom, censorship.
“It’s important. It’s a small gesture compared to what Assange did and what he’s going through.”
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Mrs Assange, who has two children with her husband, told Sky News: “Which is the greater taboo – destroying art or destroying human life?
“Dead Man’s Switch is a work of art. Julian’s political imprisonment is an act of real terrorism against democracy.
“The true targets here are not just Julian Assange but the public’s right to know, and the future of being able to hold power accountable.
“If democracy wins, the art will be preserved – as will Julian’s life.”
Assange has been held at Belmarsh prison since his arrest in April 2019 after leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had claimed political asylum in June 2012.
The UK government approved Assange’s extradition to the US in June 2022.
Entertainment
Zoe Ball to leave her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show – and will be replaced by Scott Mills
Zoe Ball is leaving her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show after six years.
The 53-year-old, who recently lost her mother to cancer, will present her last show on Friday, 20 December.
Ball leaves Wogan House with her replacement, Scott Mills. Pic: PA
She said she was leaving to focus on family, but will remain part of the Radio 2 team and will give further details next year.
Announcing the news on her Tuesday show, she said: “After six years of fun times alongside you all on the breakfast show, I’ve decided it’s time to step away from the early alarm call and start a new chapter.
“You know I think the world of you all, listeners, and it truly has been such a privilege to share the mornings with you, to go through life’s little ups and downs, we got through the lockdown together, didn’t we?
“We’ve shared a hell of a lot, the good times, the tough times, there’s been a lot of laughter. And I am going to miss you cats.”
Scott Mills will replace Ball on the breakfast show following her departure next month.
“Zoe and I have been such good friends now for over 25 years and have spent much of that time as part of the same radio family here at Radio 2 and also on Radio 1,” he said.
“She’s done an incredible job on this show over the past six years, and I am beyond excited to be handed the baton.”
Hugging outside the BBC building on the day of the announcement, Ball said she was “really chuffed for my mate and really excited about it”.
Ball was the first female host of both the BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 breakfast shows, starting at the Radio 1 breakfast show in 1998, and taking over her current Radio 2 role from Chris Evans in 2020 after he left the show.
She took a break from hosting her show over the summer, returning in September.
Ahead of her stint in radio, Ball – who is the daughter of children’s presenter Johnny Ball – co-hosted the BBC’s Saturday morning children’s magazine show Live & Kicking alongside Jamie Theakston for three years from 1996.
She has two children, Woody and Nelly, with her ex-husband, DJ and musician Norman Cook, known professionally as Fatboy Slim.
Ball said in her announcement her last show towards the end of December will be “just in time for Christmas with plenty of fun and shenanigans”.
“While I’m stepping away from the Breakfast Show, I’m not disappearing entirely – I’ll still be a part of the Radio 2 family, with more news in the New Year,” she added.
“I’m excited to embrace my next chapter, including being a mum in the mornings, and I can’t wait to tune in on the school run!”
Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2, said: “Zoe has woken up the nation on Radio 2 with incredible warmth, wit and so much joy since January 2019, and I’d like to thank her for approaching each show with as much vim and vigour as if it were her first. I’m thrilled that she’ll remain an important part of the Radio 2 family.”
Mills, 51, got his first presenting role aged just 16 for a local station in Hampshire, and went on to present in Bristol and Manchester, before joining BBC Radio 1 in 1998.
He’s previously worked as a cover presenter on Radio 2, but this is his first permanent role on the station.
Entertainment
Dune: Prophecy star Olivia Williams says series is the first time she has felt confident her scenes would not be cut
British actress Olivia Williams has said that in more than 30 years of acting on screen, starring in Dune: Prophecy is the first time she has felt confident her scenes would not be cut from a project.
Williams, who has appeared in films including The Sixth Sense, Rushmore and An Education, and portrayed Camilla Parker Bowles, before she became Queen, in the final two seasons of The Crown, can now be seen in the TV prequel to the blockbuster Denis Villeneuve films.
She stars alongside her close friend Emily Watson, with the pair playing the Harkonnen sisters – two women fighting forces that threaten the future of humankind.
Emily Watson and Olivia Williams star together in Dune: Prophecy. Pic: Sky Atlantic/ HBO
Based on the Dune and Sisterhood of Dune novels, the Sky Atlantic show is set 10,000 years before the birth of Timothee Chalamet‘s character, Paul Atreides, in the films, and follows the two women as they found the fabled sisterhood that will later become known as the Bene Gesserit.
The series is a prequel to the Dune films, which star Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya. Pic: Warner Bros. Pictures
Despite knowing each other for 30 years, and even working at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at the same time, the show marks Williams and Watson’s first time on screen together.
Williams says they are often asked why they have never acted together before. There’s a simple answer, she tells Sky News. “It’s because there are no scripts for two women of the same age to lead a story.
“We’re used to playing the character that can, if the film’s running a bit long, be cut out because you don’t genuinely affect the plot of the show. Well, just try cutting the Harkonnen sisters out of this story!”
She adds: “We knew that our work would be used – which, in 35 years, I’d say is the first time that’s happened.”
Williams plays Sister Tula Harkonnen. Pic: HBO/ Sky Atlantic
In Dune: Prophecy, Watson plays the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit Sisters, Valya Harkonnen, whilst Williams plays her younger sibling, Sister Tula Harkonnen.
Watson, who recently starred alongside Oscar winner Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These, says it feels wonderful to be given the freedom to portray strong, stoic characters.
“When we were first cast, we went and sat in the National Portrait Gallery and sat in front of portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, Bloody Mary, and just thought about that time when those very powerful women were front and centre, and terrified and deeply paranoid because everybody wanted to either marry them or kill them.”
Jodhi May and Mark Strong also star. Pic: Sky Atlantic/ HBO
The two actresses first met outside the Black Swan pub in Stratford-upon-Avon when they were starting out in their careers with the nearby RSC.
Williams says it “doesn’t feel real” that their careers have become as successful as they have.
“It is an extraordinary thing that I said I would stop at 30 and go and try to be a lawyer. I didn’t intend to be working as an actor and now I can’t believe my luck.
“You get to the end of every job and you go, was that the last time I will act? And that is a really tough way to, you know, bring up a family and you can’t get a bloody mortgage or life insurance with a lifestyle like that. So anyway, that was my real-life whinge.”
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Watson said the experience of leading a big-budget series together was not lost on her, and she felt an onus to help create a positive environment for the younger actors.
“We were like the CEOs and we were making sure that everybody was seen and felt part of something and were feeling okay about how everything was going down. And it felt like a really healthy way to do it.”
Dune: Prophecy is available to watch on Sky Atlantic and Now
Sean “Diddy” Combs has attempted to contact prospective witnesses from jail in a bid to sway public opinion ahead of his upcoming sex trafficking trial, prosecutors have claimed.
The accusations were made in a Manhattan federal court filing in which the prosecution opposes the 55-year-old rapper‘s latest $50m (£39m) bail proposal. A bail hearing is scheduled for next week.
Combs pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years with the aid of a network of associates and employees, while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
He says his sexual relationships were consensual, and strenuously denies all wrongdoing.
In the latest step of the ongoing case, prosecutors say a review of recorded jail calls made by Combs shows he has asked family members to reach out to potential victims and witnesses and has urged them to create “narratives” to influence the jury pool.
They say he has also encouraged marketing strategies to influence public opinion.
The filing said: “The defendant has shown repeatedly – even while in custody – that he will flagrantly and repeatedly flout rules in order to improperly impact the outcome of his case.
“The defendant has shown, in other words, that he cannot be trusted to abide by rules or conditions.”
Prosecutors wrote that it could be inferred from his behaviour that Combs wants to blackmail victims and witnesses into silence or into providing testimony helpful to his defence.
Read more: What is Sean Combs charged with?
It is alleged that Combs began breaking rules almost as soon as he was detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York City, after his arrest in September.
Two judges have concluded he is a danger to the community and at risk of fleeing, rejecting two previous bail requests.
In Combs’s latest request, his lawyers cited changed circumstances, including new evidence, which they said made it sensible to release him ahead of his trial next year.
But prosecutors said defence lawyers created their latest bail proposal using some evidence prosecutors turned over to them, and the new material was already known to defence lawyers when they made previous bail applications.
In their submission to a judge, prosecutors said Combs’s behaviour in jail shows he must remain locked up.
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They cited examples including Combs enlisting family members to plan and carry out a social media campaign around his birthday earlier this month, “with the intention of influencing the potential jury in this criminal proceeding”.
They say he encouraged his seven children to post a video to their social media accounts showing them gathered to celebrate his birthday.
Afterwards, they say he allegedly monitored the analytics, including audience engagement, from inside the jail and “explicitly discussed with his family how to ensure that the video had his desired effect on potential jury members in this case”.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Prosecutors also alleged Combs made clear his intention to anonymously publish information that he thought would help his defence team.
“The defendant’s efforts to obstruct the integrity of this proceeding also includes relentless efforts to contact potential witnesses, including victims of his abuse who could provide powerful testimony against him,” they wrote.
Sky News has contacted Combs’s lawyer for comment.
Combs is currently in custody in Manhattan. His criminal trial is scheduled for 5 May 2025.
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