A self-styled art critic gave a scathing review to the Jeff Koons exhibit the Whitney Museum Wednesday — splattering a red substance on a wall in a bloody-looking X pattern.
“It appears to be either blood or red paint,” a police source said.
Canadian performance artist Istvan Kantor made the messy splash on the third floor of the Whitney, which is hosting an exhibit of the renown pop artist, famous for his large balloon-shaped sculptures that sell for millions.
Kantor was taken by police to New York Hospital for a psych evaluation but released shortly after without being charged.
“I just came out of mental hospital where the police took me after the Whitney,” Kantor wrote in an online message, according to the art blog Hyperallergic.
“I was discharged I am free… now I go out for a drink in the lower east side.”
His splattering took place just beside an iconic Koons piece called Rabbit (1986), an inflatable vinyl piece that is acknowledged as one of the artist’s most famous piece.
A witness told Hyperallergic that she was taking a selfie in the museum when the performance artist started throwing paint all over the wall.
He also managed to sign his “work” with a pseudonym before security dragged him away.
The museum released a brief statement on the bizarre incident.
“An isolated act of vandalism occurred this afternoon at the Whitney Museum of American Art involving a blank gallery wall on the third floor of the Jeff Koons exhibition,” the statement read.
“No artwork was affected or damaged in any way. Guards quickly apprehended the individual responsible. The police were called and they removed the individual from the museum.”
It wasn’t the first time the unconventional artist tried to make his mark on an art piece.
According to the BBC, Kantor tried to deface another Koons sculpture in Berlin.
Kantor tried to squeeze a capsule of blood onto the artist’s Michael Jackson and Bubbles sculpture in the Hamburger Bahnhof gallery in 2004.
He was stopped by other patrons of the gallery and only managed to spray blood onto an empty gallery wall.
The vandal told the Japan Times in 2005 that his “blood campaign” is an ongoing art project.
“I have always been breaking the rules of art,” he told the paper.
“My art was always anti-establishment and anti-institutional.
“I consider my criminal activities the most creative part of my work.”