British graffiti vandal
Banksy exhibits works in finest NYC Museums.

In a prank premierely covered by the Wooster Collective, British vandal and known political activist, 'Banksy' has caused a stir across the pond in New York Museums. By waltzing into four of New York's most prestigious museums, the Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Natural History, Museum of Modern Art, Banksy has made a mockery of security practices amongst New York's institutes. With recent articles in the New York Times, American newswire Reuters, the British artist has been able to broadcast his political views and art through major North American media.

The following excerpts are from the media's coverage of his famous wits and cunning:

British Prankster Smuggles Art Into Top NY 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.

"It was just an outsider's view of the modern American bug, bristling with listening devices and military hardware," he said.

An art Web site called www.woostercollective.com has posted pictures of the artist -- wearing an Inspector Clouseau-style overcoat, a hat and a fake beard and nose -- hanging up his work at the four museums and describing how he did it.

Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location in Britain, Banksy said he conducted all four operations on March 13, helped by accomplices who filmed him and provided distractions where necessary.

"They staged a gay tiff (lovers' quarrel), shouting very loudly and obnoxiously," said the artist, declining to give his real name or any personal details beyond his occupation as a professional painter and decorator.

It is not the first time he has staged such stunts. Last year he smuggled work into the Louvre in Paris and London's Tate, attracting attention in the British media.

"My sister inspired me to do it. She was throwing away loads of my pictures one day and I asked her why. She said 'It's not like they're going to be hanging in the Louvre."'

He took that as a challenge. "I thought why wait until I'm dead," he said.

His preferred creative outlet, graffiti on trains, was growing more difficult due to greater security so he decided to branch out into infiltrating museums. "I tend to gravitate to places with less sophisticated security systems," he said.

Officials at the Natural History Museum declined to comment on security. Museum of Modern Art officials said only that the offending picture was taken down on March 17.

It was unclear what gave the game away but Banksy's version of Andy Warhol's iconic images of Campbell's Soup Cans showed a can of Tesco value tomato soup, a discounted brand sold by a British supermarket chain.

"Obviously they've got their eye a lot more on things leaving than things going in which works in my favor," Banksy said. "I imagine they'll be doing stricter bag checks now."

He said the painting in the Metropolitan Museum, a small portrait of a woman wearing a gas mask, had been discovered after one day, while the others stayed up for several days. The paintings were fixed to the wall with extra-strong glue.

Asked how he managed to escape notice while putting them up on a busy Sunday at the museums, he said: "They do get pretty full, but not if you put the pictures in the boring bits."

Here is an interview that served as groundwork for the article that made the front page on The New York Times conducted with New York Times writer Randy Kennedy, published in its entirety by Wooster Collective:

Q: Is this the first time you've installed works of your own in New York museums?

.A: In New York, yes. Before this my paintings have only been exhibited in the
Tate gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris. Then they took them down.

Q: Why did you choose the four you chose?

A: I went for the biggest four museums in New York, I wanted to do the Guggenheim but there weren't enough paintings in it,
I would have had to appear between two Picasso's and I'm not good enough to get away with that.

Q: Were the works you installed all paintings on canvas?

A: Two of the works were fine oil paintings. I vandalised them so they had some actual meaning. In the Natural History museum
I installed a real dead beetle but with model missiles and satellite dishes stuck to it. A bug in the true American spirit.

Q: How did you attach them to the wall?

A: I was careful to attach them in a way they wouldn't fall down by themselves.

Q: What message, if any, were you trying to convey by putting up these
works?

A: I've wandered round a lot of art galleries thinking 'I could have done that' so it seemed only right that I should try. These
Galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see. Its good
to screw with the selection process sometimes.

'Comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable'
as Eleanor Roosevelt once said.

The gas mask painting is about how fear of terror is disfiguring society.

The military officer painting is dedicated to all those who joined the forces to fight honorable and just wars, and ended up feeling like maybe they should have stayed home and been peace activists instead.

Q: How did you put up the works without being noticed by guards or
other visitors? was it easy?

A: As a graffiti artist its harder to paint subway trains in New York these days than it is to paint your major public exhibition spaces.
You just have to glue on a fake beard and move with the times.

Q: How did you manage to get the paintings into the museums?

A: After reading 3 biographies on Harry Houdini.

The vandal known as Banksy, creates imagery that makes people stop and reconsider society in mere minutes with his cute monkeys wearing signs warning of their races' future world dominance, the grim reaper characters with Wal-Mart smileyfaces, elegantly detailed little girls watching their hearts blow away in the wind. Banksy is one of those vandals that pulls the extreme heists and is no doubt a modern-day vigilante that may leave a legacy similar to Robin Hood. For more delightful stunts, images and unbelievable pranks that make you root for the person whose identity is kept very secretive... keep your eyes open. You never know where you'll see his markings next.

To learn more about Banksy, go to his website... www.banksy.co.uk