New York Museums infiltrated by artist, works hung up

[IowaStatePhiPsi]

British Prankster Smuggles Art Into Top NY Museums
Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:25 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Many a visitor to New York's Museum of Modern Art has probably thought, "I could do that."

A British graffiti artist who goes by the name "Banksy" went one step further, by smuggling in his own picture of a soup can and hanging it on a wall, where it stayed for more than three days earlier this month before anybody noticed.

The prank was part of a coordinated plan to infiltrate four of New York's top museums on a single day.

The largest piece, which he smuggled into the Brooklyn Museum, was a 2 foot by 1.5 foot (61cm by 46 cm) oil painting of a colonial-era admiral, to which the artist had added a can of spray paint in his hand and anti-war graffiti in the background.

The other two targets were the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History, where he hung a glass-encased beetle with fighter jet wings and missiles attached to its body -- another comment on war, Banksy told Reuters on Thursday.

"It was just an outsider's view of the modern American bug, bristling with listening devices and military hardware," he said.

An art Web site called www.woostercollective.com has posted pictures of the artist -- wearing an Inspector Clouseau-style overcoat, a hat and a fake beard and nose -- hanging up his work at the four museums and describing how he did it.

Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location in Britain, Banksy said he conducted all four operations on March 13, helped by accomplices who filmed him and provided distractions where necessary.

"They staged a gay tiff (lovers' quarrel), shouting very loudly and obnoxiously," said the artist, declining to give his real name or any personal details beyond his occupation as a professional painter and decorator.

It is not the first time he has staged such stunts. Last year he smuggled work into the Louvre in Paris and London's Tate, attracting attention in the British media.

"My sister inspired me to do it. She was throwing away loads of my pictures one day and I asked her why. She said 'It's not like they're going to be hanging in the Louvre."'

He took that as a challenge. "I thought why wait until I'm dead," he said.

His preferred creative outlet, graffiti on trains, was growing more difficult due to greater security so he decided to branch out into infiltrating museums. "I tend to gravitate to places with less sophisticated security systems," he said.

Officials at the Natural History Museum declined to comment on security. Museum of Modern Art officials said only that the offending picture was taken down on March 17.

It was unclear what gave the game away but Banksy's version of Andy Warhol's iconic images of Campbell's Soup Cans showed a can of Tesco value tomato soup, a discounted brand sold by a British supermarket chain.

"Obviously they've got their eye a lot more on things leaving than things going in which works in my favor," Banksy said. "I imagine they'll be doing stricter bag checks now."

He said the painting in the Metropolitan Museum, a small portrait of a woman wearing a gas mask, had been discovered after one day, while the others stayed up for several days. The paintings were fixed to the wall with extra-strong glue.

Asked how he managed to escape notice while putting them up on a busy Sunday at the museums, he said: "They do get pretty full, but not if you put the pictures in the boring bits."

The images above - exclusive to the Wooster site and provided by Banksy - are of Banksy installing four pieces in New York's most prestigious museums - The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Natural History.

Dressed as a British pensioner, over the last few days Banksy entered each of the galleries and attached one of his own works, complete with authorative name plaque and explanation.

He says - "This historic occasion has less to do with finally being embraced by the fine art establishment and is more about the judicious use of a fake beard and some high strength glue." Banksy continues -"They're good enough to be in there, so I don't see why I should wait"

Staff at the New York Met discovered and removed their new aquisition early Sunday morning while Banksy's discount soup can print took pride of place in the MoMA for over three days before being torn down.

As of now, the other two pieces currently remain firmly in place...

To learn more about Banksy, go to... www.banksy.co.uk

1. is this the first time you've installed works of your own in new
york museums?
In New York, yes. Before this my paintings have only been exhibited in the
Tate gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris. Then they took them down.

2. why did you choose the four you chose?
I went for the biggest four museums in New York, I wanted to do the
Guggenheim but there weren't enough paintings in it, I would have had to
appear between two Picasso's and I'm not good enough to get away with that.

3. were the works you installed all paintings on canvas?
Two of the works were fine oil paintings. I vandalised them so they had
some actual meaning. In the Natural History museum I installed a real dead
beetle but with model missiles and satellite dishes stuck to it. A bug in
the true American spirit.

4. how did you attach them to the wall?
I was careful to attach them in a way they wouldn't fall down by themselves.

5. what message, if any, were you trying to convey by putting up these
works?
I've wandered round a lot of art galleries thinking 'I could have done that'
so it seemed only right that I should try.

These Galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The
public never has any real say in what art they see. Its good to screw with
the selection process sometimes. 'Comfort the disturbed, and disturb the
comfortable' as Eleanor Roosevelt once said.

The gas mask painting is about how fear of terror is disfiguring society.

The military officer painting is dedicated to all those who joined the
forces to fight honorable and just wars, and ended up feeling like maybe
they should have stayed home and been peace activists instead.

6. how did you put up the works without being noticed by guards or
other visitors? was it easy?
As a graffiti artist its harder to paint subway trains in New York these
days than it is to paint your major public exhibition spaces.
You just have to glue on a fake beard and move with the times.

7. How did you manage to get the paintings into the museums?
After reading 3 biographies on Harry Houdini

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A> shows a lapse in the security systems of New York's museums
B> I think it's cool he did that.

[IowaStatePhiPsi]

[Kevlar281]

Didn't Tom Green do somthing very simular?

[Optimist Prime]

the biggest news story is that art was hung up in an art mueseum?