LA Artist Snuck His Own Drawing onto the Met’s Walls and Filmed It

The Metropolitan Museum of Art became an unwitting new home for a work by the Los Angeles–based artist David (Sabastian) Miklatski, who snuck a drawing onto one of the institution’s walls and documented its time there for all the world to see.

As reported by Hyperallergic, “In a viral Instagram reel, multi-hyphenate artist David (Sabastian) Miklatski detailed the steps of creating and surreptitiously installing a drawing on one of The Met’s gallery walls last Sunday, October 25. The work in question, The MET 2027, is an oil pastel painting depicting a Met Gala attendee ascending the staircase flanked by shrubs and photojournalists as police in riot gear beat down protestors in a fiery scene in the foreground.”

Miklatski’s Instagram reel, set to the soundtrack of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” (aka “Teenage Wasteland”), shows his work at the Met interspersed with starry images from the Met Gala—which the artist describes as “an event where billionaires donate millions of dollars so celebrities can play dress up in the name of art”—and horrific images from Congo, Paris, Milan, Gaza, Haiti, Ukraine, and the United States.

Of the work, Miklatski says he “did it in crayon to make it extra ridiculous,” before detailing how he pulled off the caper with the aid of a baby stroller, a portable speaker loaded with sex noises, and a deceptive friend in on the ruse.