Artist Questioned by Secret Service Over Assassination-Themed Show

NEW YORK—Secret Service agents and members of the NYPD briefly detained and questioned artist Yazmany Arboleda yesterday, after he tried to set up a two-part exhibition entitled "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama" in an empty storefront in midtown Manhattan, the New York Times reports. Arboleda had just finished stenciling the title of the show on the space's window around 9:30 a.m., when the police and Secret Service showed up, covered his work with brown paper and masking tape, and brought him in for questioning.

Arboleda was released roughly two hours later and told reporters that the Secret Service had asked him to take down the title of the show from the window. He hadn't yet decided whether to do so. A spokesman for the service, Special Agent Eric P. Zahren, stressed that "this was brought to our attention, we went out there and had a conversation with the individual, but we did not shut it down."

The artist has created elaborate Web sites for both of the assassination shows, which claim that the exhibitions were shown at two different fictional New York art galleries in March. Wikipedia pages for both of the galleries, likely created by Arboleda, claim that the shows were unexpectedly shut down and censored by the galleries. "It's art," he told the Times. "It's not supposed to be harmful. It's about character assassination — about how Obama and Hillary have been portrayed by the media." Arboleda also has a Web site for his work and a blog called "The Assassination of Art."