busking
It's a stunt, but an interesting one - take a famous violinist, place him in a public transportation hub, see if anyone notices:
A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100.
It goes without saying that the haul from the metro stint was less than that. How much less was interesting, and the explanation offered by a senior curator at the National Gallery was instructive:
"Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame... and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale... and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'"
While the full article is a bit hammy, it's definitely worth a look.
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