A British prankster has surreptitiously hung his own humorous artwork, some of them carrying an anti-war message, in four major New York museums over the last two weeks, according to a newspaper report.
The man, who calls himself "Banksy" on a Web site that displays his artwork, has pulled similar stunts at the Louvre in Paris and the Tate museum in London, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Photographs taken by an accomplice showing Banksy carrying a painting into a museum and sticking it to the wall near other pieces of art are also on displayed on a Web site, www.woostercollective.com.
Over the last two weeks, his artwork has been found and removed from the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History.
He has been captured on museum security cameras wearing a hat and a beard.
Banksy said he entered all the museums during normal visitors' hours. Asked how he was able to avoid detection, he replied in an e-mail exchange with the Times arranged by an intermediary: "You just have to glue on a fake beard and move with the times."
"I've wandered round a lot of art galleries thinking, `I could have done that,' so it seemed only right that I should try," Banksy was quoted as saying. "These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see."
Authorities at the Brooklyn Museum on March 16 discovered and removed one of his paintings that depicted a colonial-era military officer holding a spray-paint can, with anti-war graffiti in the background. Museum officials said the incidents did not raise security concerns and believe they have enough guards and other monitoring systems.
Banksy, who refused to reveal his real name, has sold thousands of books of his artwork in Europe, where he has also had successful gallery shows.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS