Oh, That Istvan!

[ltmurnau]

He's in trouble again!

Governor General's Award-winner arrested in Berlin art gallery incident


Last Updated Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:33:43 EST

BERLIN - A Governor General's Award-winning artist was arrested in Germany Tuesday after he attempted to throw a vial of his own blood on a sculpture of pop star Michael Jackson on display at a Berlin art gallery.

Istvan Kantor was charged with disturbing the peace and property damage after trying to splatter blood on a statue by well-known Los Angeles artist Paul McCarthy which is on display at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum.

The statue, which depicts Jackson and his pet chimpanzee "Bubbles," is part of an exhibit of contemporary art culled from the collection of German businessman Friedrich Christian Flick.

Museum officials said the artwork was not hit by blood, which landed on a nearby wall.

The 55-year-old Toronto artist reportedly shouted "I am protesting against the loss of independence in art" following the incident.

Born in Hungary in 1949, Kantor is considered the father of "Neoism" an international anarchist art movement that has been compared to Dadaism.

Over the space of two decades he has been banned from numerous galleries, including New York's Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Canada, for splattering "X" marks with his own blood on the walls.

In March he was awarded the 2004 Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts in recognition of his body of work.

The awards jury praised Kantor for being a "no-holds-barred, neo-Dada" artist who's work ventured into music, kinetic sculpture, multimedia installations and, most memorably, performance art.

[next few paragraphs cribbed from previous CBC file stories]

Kantor is currently living in Berlin where he is working on a video installation Lebensraum/ Lifespace, A Spectacle of Noise.

Written by CBC News Online staff
***



Look at that waggish face - how could you not help but like him, huh?

Comments

[rroseselavyoui.livejournal.com]

I thought this was some sort of deconstructed Morrissey spoof at first glance.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Nope, I've known this guy for a long time, from back in my mail-art days. For more about him, go here and read the next few entries.

[xplodingsilence.livejournal.com]

I did'nt hear anything about that here in Berlin. Strange????

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Maybe no one noticed. Who goes to the Hamburger Bannhof musuem?

[xplodingsilence.livejournal.com]

I do!!!!
It's famous in Germany. It has works from Warhol, Lichtenstein, Flavin and Joseph Beuys (who I really like).

The "Flick collection" has maximum security because a lot of people tried to destroy the art, because Flick was a well known nazi.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

I heard something about the controversy over the exhibition of the Flick collection. He was an arms dealer or something like that?

Anyway, check your local papers!

[(Anonymous)]

Not THAT Flick was a nazi, his father was. He just used his money to finance this exhibit.

[seaofrain.livejournal.com]

The statue, which depicts Jackson and his pet chimpanzee "Bubbles," is part of an exhibit of contemporary art culled from the collection of German businessman Friedrich Christian Flick.

haha! did Kantor say anything else as to why picked that painting from that collection? It seemed like he was making a political statement because the collection was on loan from Flick who is a grandson of a Nazi industrialist. basically he put his "hip brand-name contemporary art" collection on loan to Berlin's art gallery for several years but he has no intention to pay to maintain the exhibition...the taxpayers will. It was just very insincere move that looks like and probably is a strategy of hiking up his art collection price by exhibiting it.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right. I have no idea why Kantor picked that particular piece.

Did you manage to get rid of any of those metal pieces?

[seaofrain.livejournal.com]

no..they are still sitting on the shelf waiting for the right people to to pick them up.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Oh well, maybe someone will give them a home.
Meanwhile: http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/1843041/