It's been nearly a year since Uriel Landeros walked into the Menil Collection with a can of spray paint and stenciled a bull and bullfighter, along with the word "conquista," on Pablo Picasso's Woman in a Red Armchair.
On Tuesday, the 22-year-old Landeros pleaded guilty to vandalizing the 1929 painting in exchange for two years in prison. He had faced up to 10 years for felony graffiti and criminal mischief charges.
"[W]e are heartened and grateful that the judicial process has come to completion," Menil spokesperson Gretchen Bock Sammons told CultureMap via email. "As for the Picasso, the restoration is complete and successful and the painting will eventually go on view — as works from the collection do, in rotation."
A Mexican-American art student at the University of Houston, Landeros claimed that he performed the vandalism in dedication "to all the people out there who have suffered for any injustice of every kind."
After nearly six months in hiding in northern Mexico — during which time he explained his actions in a YouTube video and participated in a solo show at Spring Street Studios put on by local gallery owner James Perez — Landeros turned himself in to U.S. Marshals in January at the urging of his attorney, Emily Detoto.
Landeros has already served five months in the Harris County Jail, and Detoto said that "there is a good chance her client could be quickly paroled once he is placed into the Texas prison system," according to the Huffington Post. She noted that Landeros plans to return to UH to complete his bachelor's degree.
Uriel Landeros
