The case of Gina Rinehart, the billionaire who wanted to hide her portrait (and thus made it viral)

What Gina Rinehart wanted was to make sure that no one would ever see her portrait displayed again National Gallery of Australia. What happened is that, since then, that work has become very famous and that the flow of visitors to the Canberra museum has multiplied.

Let's start from the beginning. Gina Rinehart is Australia's richest womanheir to the iron mining industry Hancock Prospecting and daughter of the company's founder, Lang Hancock. An Aboriginal artist, Vincent Namatjira, an award-winning artist, decided to portray her.

The one of Namatjira is certainly an unflattering painting for Gina Rinehart, and is part of a satirical series (“Australia in colour») which challenges power by depicting, in caricature style, 21 influential people who have «shaped» Australia. «I paint the world as I see it. I paint rich, powerful or significant people, people who have had an influence on this country and on me personally, directly or indirectly, for better or for worse,” he explained. “People don't have to like my paintings, but I hope they take the time to look at them and think, 'Why did this Aboriginal guy paint these powerful people? What is he trying to say?

The portrait hangs alongside images of Queen Elizabeth II and football player Adam Goodes, and will be on display until July 21. Yes why although the Australian billionaire has asked for its removal, the National Gallery has no intention of obliging her.

But if Gina Rinehart was trying to have her portrait removed, all the newspapers talked about her request, and the result obtained was the opposite of what she would have wanted. The heiress was the victim of the «Streisand effect», a term coined after Barbra Streisand sued in 2003 to try to remove an aerial photo of her California beach house from an online collection. Since then, almost half a million people have visited the site in a month Pictopia to see that image.

The National Gallery declared to the Guardian Australia that there was a “significant increase” in museum visitors and its digital channels, in the last week. Searches for “Gina Rinehart” on Google have also increased exponentially: Before May 15, the day the first articles on the story were published, interest in Rinehart on Google was 0. Two days later, that name reached peak popularity. One week later, interest continues to be high. Australia and New Zealand were the first two nations to search for “Gina Rinehart”, but curiosity has become global, with Austria, Ireland and Slovenia among the top five countries most interested in the case.

The painting appeared in media around the world. Rinehart and the portrait of him were also mentioned in the American talk show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “A billionaire asked for an unflattering portrait of her to be removed,” Colbert said. “I mean, come on. How unflattering could this portrait be? » He added, before taking a look at the painting. «Okay, I have to say that I'm not an art expert, but in this work I think the artist really captured Rinehart's expression the moment he saw the portrait».