"The Verdict" by Dan Wolgers from the Tom Böttiger Collection.

In January 2005, Maria Miesenberger presented the sculpture series "Hide & Seek" for the first time. It has since been exhibited at numerous museums and institutions nationwide and is greatly beloved. The complete suite consists of three sculptures: one standing with hands covering the eyes, one creeping on all fours, and the third, sneaking and crawling.

These sculptures, cast in aluminum and bearing Miesenberger's unmistakable winding fingerprint-like patterns on the surface, resemble fleeting memories of childhood games of hide and seek. They are light in their expression, and their soft forms make them elusive; they do not stay with us but are already on their way forward - just like the memories that quickly pass by. They move between the viewer and between each other. The child's play and the child's relationship to the adult world form a resonance in many of Miesenberger's works, and before the viewer can blink, "Hide & Seek (crawling)" has already silently and gently moved on to the next game.

Since I had requested that the benches not be placed back in my completed space in the art hall, they were placed in another artist's room on a raised pedestal with a surrounding rope, and the whole thing was surrounded by piles of press clippings about the benches.

During the exhibition, when visitors came to see my empty space and the nail holes from the stolen sign, and the repurchased benches on the catafalque, I was reported to the police by two private individuals, independently of each other. My offense fell under public prosecution, and the prosecutor determined the charge to be embezzlement. I was called in for questioning, provided a detailed account of the factual circumstances, and admitted guilt. Eventually, a trial followed for which I had been assigned a publicly funded defense attorney, but neither of us had anything to add. In the courtroom, there was a school class and some art connoisseurs. The verdict would be delivered at a later date.

And sometime later, I read in the morning newspaper at breakfast that I had been sentenced to sixty daily fines for embezzling the two benches. The sentence was considered lenient, and the reason for leniency was that I had no previous criminal record and was not expected to relapse into crime. Later that same day, a letter from the Stockholm District Court arrived by mail. I assumed it contained the verdict and a payment slip for the fine amount. Since I would soon have a solo exhibition at Galleri Riis in Oslo but lacked the funds to execute what I had planned for the exhibition, I decided to ask the gallery owner to try to sell the unopened envelope to a collector. It worked, and I signed and dated the envelope with today's date, awaiting a reminder invoice regarding the fines from the district court. When the reminder arrived, I paid the fines with the proceeds from the sale, and the surplus amount went towards preparing the exhibition in Oslo.

After it became known through the newspapers that the unopened envelope had been sold, and the proceeds had gone toward fines and the next exhibition, the media frenzy lost interest as it could no longer keep up with the twists and turns.

I moved on, and so did the envelope in its way.

Dan Wolgers