Photograph by Violette Bule, also courtesy of the Guardian.

Remember Matisse’s “Odalisque in Red Pants” painting that was recently found in Miami? Well recently more than a dozen women went topless, wearing only red pants at the Caracas’s Museum of Contemporary Art, to ask for a quicker return of the painting to its rightful place in Venezuela.

Even though the painting was said to have been recovered by FBI agents more than a month ago (my last post on this painting being found is from exactly a month ago, to the day), the whereabouts of the Odalisque are still unknown. The Venezuelan attorney general has asked US officials about the painting twice with no response. Some think that this could mean the oil painting recovered is just another copy.

The women protesting were photographed here by Venezuelan artist Violette Bule, playing with prop frames and in poses related to the 1925 post-impressionist work. “My main goal is to have the original returned, but I also want to call attention to the irony behind the way the art market works,” she said, “After this scandal, the Odalisque will surely be worth much more.”

Read the whole story on the Guardian here.