In just one week, Project Artaud, the art cooperative at 499 Alabama St., was hit three times by seemingly the same thief — one interested mostly in the artworks.
The thief took keys from the lock boxes near the sidewalk and let himself into the three-story complex, where artists live and work. He stole a sculpture, several paintings and prints from five artists. The stolen pieces add up to about $20,000 in losses, according to Javier Manrique, an artist at the building who had one of his paintings stolen.
“It’s just odd,” Manrique said of the video that showed a man in his late 20s about 5 feet 10 inches tall. “But they knew what they were looking for.”…