In the works of art on display at the Alex Gallery in D.C., "Suter seeks forms that we all carry within our collective memory, from cozy fireplaces and ducks on ponds to Grim Reapers and an Every Man being chased."
Illustrator and artist David Suter, who just opened an exhibit in Washington, D.C., was detained by police in Serbia after attempting to transport his art show from the south of France to Romania. He was interrogated, is being fined, all of his 68 works have been confiscated and he could face a six week jail sentence, according to his daughter, Georgia.
According to the Washington Post, Suter and his gallery owner Victor Gaetan were freed after a weekend under “police supervision.”
The men were detained as they attempted to cross into Romania on their way to a show there. Border agents seized 68 paintings and four sculptures by Suter and four other artists, according to Gaetan and Suter, speaking by phone from Romania, where they arrived Monday evening. The work, which remains in custody, is by artists represented by Gallery A and Alex Gallery, which share a building on R Street NW.The men were taking the pieces by car from St. Tropez, where they had been exhibited in August, to an upcoming show in Bucharest that has to be canceled, Gaetan said. They were waved into the country without formalities, but when they tried to leave, “We were told, ‘Okay, you’re in big trouble, because you didn’t complete a form for transit.’”
Earlier this year Serbian police recoverd two stolen Picasso paintings from a museum in Switzerland, “so perhaps my dad, who already looks suspicious, looked a little more suspicious driving in a car jam packed with sculptures and paintings over the border and into Romania at night,” Georgia speculated.