Report: Artist Arrested After Allegedly Spraying Blood 'X' On Whitney Museum Wall
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A performance artist from Toronto was reportedly arrested this week, after he allegedly sprayed his own blood on the wall of the Whitney Museum of American Art amid the sculptures of Jeff Koons.
Multiple published reports Thursday said Istvan Kantor, who goes by the pseudonym "Monty Cantsin," was the one depicted in Facebook photos posted Wednesday by photographer Antoine S. Lutens spraying blood from a vial in the shape of a letter X on the wall of the museum, and writing "Monty Cantsin was here, Aug. 20, 2004" on the wall below.
A "Monty Cantsin" Facebook page did not include anything about the incident, except for an Animal New York article that reported he was hospitalized for evaluation after being arrested. Several comments applauded Kantor for the work.
Kantor has been undertaking his "Blood Campaign" since 1979, and has also targeted the Museum of Modern Art and several high-profile museums in other cities around the world from Ontario to Berlin, according to a Toronto Star report.
After he was arrested following a similar stunt at the Hamburger Bahnhof contemporary art museum in Berlin, Kantor told the Star he considered the "Blood Campaign" not acts of vandalism, but "donations" of his own artworks to each museum, the newspaper reported.
The exhibit that Kantor allegedly targeted showcases is a retrospective of the work of Koons, an artist known for reproducing mundane objects such as balloon animals remade in stainless steel. He is also known for his life-size porcelain and gold leaf statues of Michael Jackson with his chimpanzee, Bubbles.
The Koons exhibit runs through Oct 19 at the Whitney Museum, at 945 Madison Ave. on the Upper East Side. Next spring, the Whitney will leave its Madison Avenue location and move to a new $720 million Renzo Piano-designed building on Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District.
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