Via Reuters/Yahoo, my attention has been drawn to an entertaining Englishman who decided to add his own work to four major New York museums.
Prankster Smuggles Art Into Top Museums
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. ...
More information, including photos of the exhibits and their placement, are available at a site called Wooster Collective as well as at the artist's own site.
Now I disagree with Banksy's politics, which seem to be the usual thoughtless leftwing drivel so common amongst artists, but I'd be happy to stand him the beverage of his choice for his prank and I hope it inspires many other people to do the same - particularly in those museums filled with dire modern art. And, since France has countless (bad) modern scuptures placed in signifcant spots by local minicipalities, I think Banksy tour of France would do wonders for improving the artistic milieu, although one suspects the original artists would have a major sense of humour failure at such Anglo-Saxon vandalism.