When a banner appears on the New Museum downtown on Bowery from an unnamed artist begging for his work to be shown, there’s going to be some talk. Especially when it is unveiled at a press preview for a new exhibition of young artists. James Kalm has a short video of April 10 detailing the mystery:
Yesterday Hrag Vartanian’s blog posted the supposed identity of the theif, a French artist Marc-Antoine Léval who calls himself The immaterial art emperor and has created such art “intrusions” in the past. As the post explains, Léval claims not to have put the painting there, only the banner. So I have the obvious question: whose painting is it? and another one, has Leval succeeded in his objective? That is, was the intrusion itself art? The New Museum has not commented on the banner, nor have they offered to show the artist’s work.