The hunt for thief or criminal is one of the classic topoi of cinematography. It always catches us as it is one of the primary scenes of social play. Order and disorder, power and anarchy, civilization and barbarism, obedience and transgression: all the dualisms of an ethical history of the West run after each other in this stage action.
The artist runs away like a thief because now in the postmodern era, aesthetic doing / thinking by definition is virtual looting, sampling, receiving stolen goods in a path whose extremes are detournement and plagiarism.