"Monty Cantsin" Vandalizes Jeff Koons Show at the Whitney Museum in New York City

[De Villo Sloan]

I came across this interesting article about a very recent "performance" at the Jeff Koons show at the Whitney Museum. The vandal splashed red paint (story update now speculates blood) on the walls, and no artwork was damaged. You can see in the article "Monty Cantsin" was written in red paint, and the man identified sure looks a lot like Canadian performance artist Istvan Kantor. Kantor and David Zack, along with Blaster Al and other luminaries, founded Neoism, which swept through the mail-art network in the 80s and 90s. Monty Cantsin and Karen Eliot are two Neoist multiple-user identities that still appear in mail-art today.

http://hyperallergic.com/144857/man-vandalizes-jeff-koons-retrospec...

[De Villo Sloan]

I'm with you, Susan. I can see Gina's point that Kantor's action does have elements of a PETA protest. It's funny that with all his revolutionary fervor, George Maciunas turned so much of the Fluxus effort to overturning the capitalist art market, as if that would be thing that would change the world. Kantor has gone in that direction as well.

Well, in typical Neoist fashion the Jeff Koons event has turned Neoists and Neoists fans in various places across the net to denouncing Kantor & his claim to be Monty Cantsin as similar to a psychotic who believes he is jesus. Interesting, if you read the material about his psychiatric evaluation, that he was labeled a narcissist. Jesus Jim posted this chestnut:

http://www.thing.de/projekte/7:9%23/cantsin_08.html

It's worth noting, probably people noted, just how male-centered that group was. Whether Kantor's action is inherently male with violation & self-mutilation is up for debate, I suppose. Cutting isn't necessarily exclusively a male pathology. And Karen Eliot is a female identity invented by a male. If more women had been part of that movement, would it have imploded with schisms & bitter fighting? I wonder.

[Susan McAllister]

Personally, I think vandalizing a Jeff Koons show is a very sane thing for an artist to do.

[De Villo Sloan]

And there are people at IUOMA who know Kantor well, so I thought there might be some interest.

When MinXus-Lynxus did our investigation of David Zack's (genuinely mysterious) death, I contacted Kantor & he was particularly not helpful. There are at least a half dozen Monty Cantsins on FB. Kantor is Monty Kantsin Amen.

[De Villo Sloan]

Monty's "action" did cause me to take a closer look at Koons, and he - Koons - x-stock broker no less, is certainly an artist of the 1% & the Wall St.-institutional-corporate-media complex. (I do like some of his work.) There's a certain logic in target selection.

Neoism has always been an extreme kind of nihilism, wedded to shock rather than boredom (the two great avant strategies, we are told.) Fluxus is/was very similar - only Fluxus has an entire room devoted to it at MoMA.

[Gü]

What a waste of a protest! He should be saving minks or something. 

[De Villo Sloan]

UPDATE

Istvan Kantor aka Monty Cantsin (who as it turns out is a recipient of the prestigious Canadian Governor General's Award in the arts) was committed to a mental hospital after vandalizing the Jeff Koons show yesterday using his own blood (not red paint as first reported).

Kantor underwent extensive tests and was released. He was soon drinking in a Lower East Side bar and issuing internet messages.

http://animalnewyork.com/2014/istvan-kantor-vandalizes-jeff-koons-e...

[De Villo Sloan]

Thanks, Carmela. Kantor's antics seem like a tired, old trope to me. But I suppose someone has to keep doing it, and it's a reminder that mail-art runs counter to the art establishment. Ray Johnson did it differently, bringing a mail-art show into the Whitney.

Neoism originally worked solely through the m-a network. Some of the originals are here at the IUOMA (including some of the "The 14 Secret Masters of the World") but most have moved on, and I won't get into naming names.

[Carmela Rizzuto]

DVS-well the wikipedia entry for Neoism certainly woke me up! Thanks for alerting us to this interesting piece of mail art history.