Heist Society Theme of Art and Culture

Art is more than just pigments on a canvas. All great art pieces have a history, and carry with them a whole host of emotions, as if they were, themselves, alive. People get so attached to the Mona Lisa  and the Girl with a Pearl Earring, it's almost as if they fall in love with them. People welcome these paintings into their homes, admire their beauty, kidnap them, and hold them prisoner. Heist Society highlights how art can be a life-or-death obsession for some folks, including Kat's family and Arturo Taccone. What do you think art means to them, really?

Questions About Art and Culture

  1. Is con artistry an art? For that matter, is Simon's specialty—computer hacking—an art? What we're getting at is, what exactly constitutes art?
  2. If a gangster steals a painting and hides it in a vault, does that strip it of its artistic value? That is, does art retain its value if no one ever views it?
  3. Why didn't Ally Carter, the author of Heist Society, use real works of art in her book?