Via YouTube, Leading Tours of the City’s Art Scene
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
By JED LIPINSKI
WHEN Loren Munk began furtively filming New York City gallery and museum openings in 2006 — “working undercover,” as he put it — he was regularly kicked out by security guards and threatened with legal action for copyright infringement.
Since then, however, Mr. Munk’s camera has become a welcome guest, and using the alias James Kalm, he has uploaded more than 900 videos to his YouTube channels, the James Kalm Report and James Kalm Rough Cut, which have been viewed nearly two million times in total.
Curators searching for free promotion now invite him to document their shows. Fans of the project range from New York art world insiders to members of the Papulankutja aboriginal community in the desert of Western Australia.
They are 500 miles from the nearest small town, Anthony Spry, a former art teacher in Papulankutja who introduced his students to the Kalm Report, said in an e-mail from Australia.
“But the videos made them feel as if they were at the center of the New York art scene,” he said.