Assassination’ Artist Is Questioned and Released

This morning, a Boston-born performance artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama,” in neatly stenciled letters on the plate glass windows at street level.

By 9:30 a.m., New York City police detectives and Secret Service agents had shut down the exhibition, and building workers had quickly covered over the inflammatory title with large sheets of brown paper and blue masking tape. The gallery is across the street from the southern entrance to The New York Times building.

The police officers declined to answer any questions, and at first would not permit reporters to speak with Mr. Arboleda, who was wearing a black T-shirt and making cellphone calls from inside the makeshift gallery.

Later, Mr. Arboleda, who is 27, said in an interview: “It’s art. It’s not supposed to be harmful. It’s about character assassination — about how Obama and Hillary have been portrayed by the media.” He added, “It’s about the media.”
Mr. Arboleda said the exhibition was to open on Thursday and run all day.
The interview was abruptly ended as Mr. Arboleda was led off to the Midtown South police precinct station for what he called an interrogation.

Reached by telephone this morning, Eric Joza, the building manager for the building at 264 West 40th Street, between Eighth and Seventh Avenues, said: “I had no idea what he was going to do. All I knew is that he was an artist and was going to use the store for two days: today and tomorrow.” There are offices above the storefront.
Mr. Joza would not identify the building’s owner, and he would not disclose the terms of the lease or the previous occupant of the storefront, beyond saying that the storefront had been vacant.

Mr. Arboleda has even set up elaborate Web sites, one for Mrs. Clinton and one for Mr. Obama. (June 5 Update: Further reporting has determined that descriptions of past shows and claims of censorship were fabrications intended to fool news organizations.)

Shortly after 11:30 a.m., Mr. Arboleda called reporters to let them know that he had been released.

The Assassination of Barack Obama: Freedom of expression or racism?

A controversial art exhibit was raided and shut down before it could be viewed in NYC yesterday.

According to the NY Times blog: Cityroom, Boston-born performance artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama”.

The artist thought his racist views were protected under the Constitution because he was expressing himself through his art. Wrong.

Not 30 minutes after Arboleda set up the gallery across the street from the New York Times building, police, feds and secret service swooped in to shut the art exhibit down. While police covered the offensive storefront window with brown paper, Arboleda was led away in handcuffs to be “interrogated”.

Arboleda, 27, learned the hard way that freedom has its limits. Later, in an interview, he said: “It’s art. It’s not supposed to be harmful. It’s about character assassination — about how Obama and Hillary have been portrayed by the media.” He added, “It’s about the media.”