An artist placed his own work in the Guggenheim Museum, complete with a wall card labeling the work. It was discovered and removed:

Now, the artist who placed it there, Mat Benote, says the reason he made this artistic expression was because of the amount of money museums across the country spend on art.

” For instance, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art spending over $20 million to commission a piece of artwork by Jeff Koons,” Betone said. “I think it is a shame that an artist would make a museum spend so much money aquiring pieces of work.”

Betone said he thinks it’s a bigger shame so much taxpayer money is being wasted in such a manner, and the money could be better spent helping the community. The goal of his work is to benefit museums by directly gifting artwork to them, like what he did at the Guggenheim.

“Show that as an art form, graffiti has as much right to be displayed in a museum as any other form of art,” he said.

Artistic Expression at the Guggenheim (WABCNews-NY)