Père-Lachaise or bust: Four decades later, stolen Jim Morrison relic recovered on the other side

Père-Lachaise or bust: Four decades later, stolen Jim Morrison relic recovered on the other side

There’s the lore surrounding the 1971 death of Doors frontman Jim Morrison here in Paris and that surrounding the 1987 theft of a bust that was sculpted and put up in tribute at his grave site at the Plesz Cemetery in the east of the French capital. For years, it’s been a tourist destination. financial police uh uh happens upon the missing uh bust during a raid of an apartment has more. Tried to run, tried to hide, break through the other side. Little did Jim Morrison know that his lyrics of break on Through was heard in this clip. They take on a whole other meaning of a break-in in the night that led to a breakthrough by police. On May 19th, Paris’s anti-fraud department posted on social media that while working on another case, they’d found something out of the ordinary. A tease that then revealed in the following slide, the longlost sculpted bust from Jim Morrison’s grave. With its nose still broken off and still coated in graffiti from Door’s Dieards, the statue has been missing since 1988 when it was stolen from the Paris Perilicious Cemetery. For indeed, people are strange. some nap things from cemeteries. It was a mega fan of the doors who came to Perles one night, broke off the bust and then attached it to a moped scooter and sped through the cemetery at the crazy speed of 70 km hour. It was completely out of this world. Sculpted by the Croatian artist Muldan Michelin, the bust was affixed to the singer’s grave on the 10th anniversary of his death, which occurred in Paris on July 3rd, 1971 when the rock star was just 27. The grave with and without the bust has become a beloved tourist stop, a hello, I love you place for devoted fans. Pella shares the world’s most visited cemetery now has added security. And for flocking fans, the resolved mystery was a light my fire moment. It’s incredible this story of finding it again so many years later. French officials have not yet announced whether the bus will be returned to Morrison’s grave or whether this is the end of a 37year-old case. And for more, let’s go to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Anise Gatau is art historian head of the Henry Clayfrig Fine Arts Library at the University of Pittsburgh. Thank you for being with us here on France 24. Thanks for having me. So they find this bust. Apparently they also found an Andy Warhol. The financial police were looking for according to newspaper Liberion uh were were uh had gone on a raid because uh the owner of the apartment or the occupant of this apartment uh uh had cooked the books for selling his company and this is how it was found. It’s 37 years later. your thoughts on this bust, the story we heard about it being driven away on a moped uh being stolen on a moped even that is the subject of dispute. Yeah. And you know like the the anecdote itself is uh is absolutely exquisite. Um, so I used to work as a tour guide and my one of my favorite thing to do was taking people to CPR lashes and um, what I’m thinking uh, as a former tour guide is like what a good anecdote uh, to tell and the story of Jim Morrison being buried at Perashes is full of good anecdotes. So I’m delightful that the bus was found. Um, but then the art historian side of me also wonders, okay, so what’s next now? So it was mentioned that uh we don’t know if the bus is going to be returned to paraches and it really questions like what do we want uh the grave of Jim Morisome to be? Do you want it to be you know like a beautiful um beautiful grave almost pristine because now like it’s often really hard to access the grave um because there is uh fencing. So, do we want something pristine maybe with the bust uh put there again or do we want um do we want to preserve the ritual in itself? And so if you want to preserve the ritual in itself, it means allowing people maybe like to be close to the grave to touch it in extreme cases steal from it. Um so it’s a it’s a good question to ask ourselves like what do we want uh um places dedicated to memory uh to look like? Yeah. Because when you look at the bust itself, it’s still got all this graffiti on it. And like you say, the site’s been cleaned up. I can remember in years past, uh, people would leave cigarettes on Jim Morrison’s grave as a sign of respect for him. Uh, harks back to a time of counterculture, shall we say, if not drug culture. Exactly. So, I remembered actually the very first time I I saw it. So, at the time, I had no idea who Jim Morrison was, and my dad had uh had to tell me, and it was in the I think early ‘9s, so the bust was already missing. Um, and again, I didn’t know who Jim Morrison was at the time. Uh, and what I remember though is being very impressed, almost a little scared, uh, because there was a group of people, uh, around the around the grave. um some of them listening to music, other uh smoking cigarettes and other substances uh while sitting on the grave uh drinking whiskey out of the bottle. Um so it was um it was definitely something I will always remember. And then the first time I went back as an adult years and years later, I was really um I was very excited. I really wanted to like live this moment again. And when I arrived, it was uh so shocking to me to see it like pristine, cleaned up. Um and people are still, you know, like leaving little notes, leaving photos um or like uh doing graffitis on the nearby graves, which is another issue, or on the trees, but it’s definitely a very different place now. All right. Sign of the times. It’s it’s it’s been cleaned up. and Anise Gratau, France Vilmino and Jinny Godula for France 24 devoted six months ago an entire show to the Perles Cemetery. Turns out Jim Morrison’s not only uh the uh famous resident of Paris’s most famous cemetery. Let’s take a look. Per Lashes is a secular cemetery and the final resting place of many of France’s cultural elite from Maren Maru to Mier. Composer Frederick Shopan, artist Gertrude Stein, and dancer Isidora Duncan are among the many international artists buried here as well. Many tombs offer clues as to what their owners did while living. Author Unoru Balzac features a book and a plume. Painter Jericho has an artist’s pallet and singer Alam Bashung part of a vinyl record. His tomb is covered with kisses, as was that of playwright Oscar Wild before being protected behind glass. One of the most popular stars at Berles is Jim Morrison, the frontman for the doors. His fans used to leave graffiti and beer bottles. Now they fill a nearby tree with chewing gum. Antoan Palontier brought the potato to France in the 18th century, and his grave is covered with spuds. But perhaps the cemetery’s strangest tradition is linked to a 19th century journalist named Victor Noir. A life-size bronze statue of the moment he was assassinated marks his grave with a very noticeable bulge in his trousers. Legend has it leaving a flower in his hat and rubbing the protrusion will increase fertility and greatly improve your sex life. So, there’s sex, drugs, and rock and roll at the Pelles Cemetery. Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s why it makes it uh such a wonderful story. And um yeah, the the place Pelashes is sure it is a cemetery, but it’s also to me it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s an amazing green space um in Paris and it’s an open air museum and it’s also like a place full of like thousands and thousands of stories. Um if you’re an animal lover, it’s also like the best place in Paris to see foxes like going around. So um there is there is only good thing there. Is it like you just described it uh because it’s this green space with these beautiful sculptures or is there for tourists a fascination with the dead? So there is definitely a fascination for the dead and you know like um the idea that um a lot of people going to paraches really want to see celebrities which I dead celebrities which I I completely get. Um and but then for a lot of people there is the I this idea to go to a space that’s beautiful that’s peaceful um thousands of trees everywhere and you know you don’t have if you want to see beautiful French sculpture especially from the 19th century you don’t need to buy a ticket to go to a museum you can just like wander through this nice little cobblestone streets and art is all around you is there an equivalent in other major western capitals to the Pelles. So Perles is really when it was created in the early 19th century, it was really one of its kind. It’s really like the first cemetery in the modern term, meaning that the space is designed for the dead, but also for the living. And so a lot of visitors in Paris are going to be inspired by what they see. And actually um even uh where I live now in the US we do have cemeteries inspired by paraches we call this trend the rural cemetery and where I am in Pittsburgh of all places we do have one of the most beautiful ones in the entire US but this being said um it’s rather unusual. One final question and Kato, what’s your religion? Should that bust of Jim Morrison return to the Plesz or not? So I don’t have any good answer for you. Uh I can tell you though that um the fence around the Oscar Wild sculpture sure preserves the sculpture but I think there is something very romantic and exciting uh in the ritual that people create uh with the artworks they can interact with and same thing with public art. Uh you know if you want your art to be outside and be interacted with at one point you have to roll the dice and see what happens. All right, an many thanks for being with us from Pittsburgh, the Pelles Cemetery in Paris’s 20th Ais Mall. Stay with us. Uh we’re going to go see the seventh art in a moment. We’re going to K. Eve Jackson has the latest from the world’s most famous film festival. [Music]

Police have found a bust of Jim Morrison that was stolen nearly four decades ago from the Paris grave that has long been a place of pilgrimage for fans of the legendary Doors singer and poet. The bust taken in 1988 from Père-Lachaise cemetery was found during an unrelated investigation conducted by a financial anti-corruption unit, Paris police said in an Instagram post Monday. For deeper insight, François Picard is pleased to welcome Anaïs Grateau, Head Librarian of the Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Library at the University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS).

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