Y Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of New Jersey based artist and policeman Charles Sabba curated by Cecilia Jurado and Ryan Brown.

For the last 15 years, Sabba has divided his life between being a police officer, a forensic sketch artist and an old fashioned bohemian (“a race of obstinate dreamers for whom art has remained a faith and not a profession” as he explains). Part of his daily basic activities are to go and catch criminals before they run away with stolen goods or after a crime that has been committed in a street corner. He has to be that person that guards rules. This constant chasing had made Charles Sabba deeply interested in what it means to steal, the borderlines of what is permitted and what is not. As an artist he got particularly involved in investigating crimes related with art. But his research goes beyond statistics and reasons to steal.

The opening reception will coincide with the 20th anniversary of one of the largest art thefts in world history, the 13 pieces stolen in the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. Charles Sabba had made several paintings and drawings about the protagonists of this event, and he also has made many others of the stolen Mona Lisa to name a few. For Y Gallery he will present a series of fingerprint drawings on FBI and New Jersey police department fingerprint cards. There are two groups of drawings, the ones that reproduce stolen art works and the others that portray art thieves.