Collector Capers, Part II Artomatic Prankster Returns, And So Does an 'Impostor'

The annual Artomatic show was rocked last weekend by rival pranksters -- each claiming the alias of " The Collector" -- who pulled off a pair of cat-and-mouse stunts offering impish commentary on the local arts scene.

The stunts -- involving anonymous notes, Monopoly money, mystery gift boxes and scavenger-hunt antics -- injected a dose of drama into the free community arts show. But they also gave a case of the jitters to artists already freaked about a small spate of artwork thefts.

Which we feel very, very bad about. Because the stunts in question were also ingeniously crafted to center on The Reliable Source. So, frankly, it was all deeply flattering and crazy fun. (Note to flacks and other publicity-cravers: Don't get any ideas. Not falling for this again.)

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It started with a couple of cryptic, anonymous letters: A promise to return. A wad of Monopoly money. Something waiting for us on the 12th floor. Signed, The Collector.

Much excitement. A year ago, someone using the same name demanded $10,000 in Parker Bros. currency for the return of a little glass rocket ship by local sculptor Tim Tate that had gone missing from his Artomatic kiosk. We accompanied Tate to a weird midnight ransom drop on the Mall, where a masked man jumped out from behind the Albert Einstein statue, seized the board-game cash and vanished again into the night. He left behind Tate's rocket ship and a note with a sort-of explanation ("Only through the loss of art does society value its art").

So was The Collector back? The folks at Artomatic called days later: A large trunk with our name on it had mysteriously appeared on the 12th floor of this year's show, in a former office building near Union Station. It was locked. But fortunately, that same day our correspondent had sent us the key (in a box that also held shards of broken ceramics -- weird as usual).

By the time we got to Artomatic on Saturday, everyone was talking about the trunk. Two artists sent us plaintive e-mails -- some paintings had walked off from their installations; were they in the trunk? A small crowd of Artomatic volunteers hovered excitedly around us. As soon as we opened the trunk, any lingering suspicions that they were in on the gag vanished.

"Uh-oh," said Artomatic co-chairman Tracy Lee. "I don't like this."

Inside: more broken pieces of kitschy ceramics (a cartoonish cat, an Uncle Sam hat). Two battered amateur landscape paintings, affixed with the label "This is junk." A romance paperback labeled "This is trash." A Monet print labeled "This is art." And a smaller box filled with business cards from various Artomatic artists -- "the real artists," proclaims the label -- and a screed decrying those who choose schlock over real artistry. Signed, The Collector. (Alas, none of the missing artworks, which no one has yet taken responsibility for stealing.)

The Artomatic folks, whose five-week run ends Sunday, were decidedly unpsyched. For most of their nine years, they've been hit by critics who think the show's open-door policy to all artists encourages too much . . . well, schlock. Later, our mysterious correspondent e-mailed us to say that the message of the trunk was meant to support, not attack, Artomatic artists. Still, groaned co-chairman Rebecca Gordon, "It's not a sophisticated argument."

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