Luxembourgish Artist Bashes U.S. Prison System After Art Basel Arrest

A globetrotting performance artist from Luxembourg says he was conjuring a tender moment with his toddler outside Art Basel in Miami Beach when an encounter with the U.S. prison system altered his Art Week plans.

Thomas Iser, accompanied by his diminutive protégé, was arrested after staging what he describes as a performance outside the Miami Beach Convention Center during Basel last week. And while he describes his encounter with Miami Beach police as cordial and respectful, he categorizes his time spent in a Miami jail as “a real descent into hell.”

Iser, dressed in only underwear and sunglasses, painted himself black with gold zig-zags to symbolize kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and letting those repairs remain visible. Asked if he understood that his performance might be interpreted as blackface in the U.S., he insists his work has “nothing to do with race or caricature.”

“For me, black represents outer space, the unknown, the silence, the infinite,” he says. “The gold represents light. This visual identity has been part of my work for years.” Indeed, a quick glance at Iser’s Wikipedia page shows the artist painted black with golden stripes.

During Basel, Iser spray-painted the words, “Sorry to disturb, art in progress,” on a window of the convention center using washable materials. He also allowed his three-year-old daughter to draw whatever she wanted with a chalk pen. Police responded rather quickly and charged him with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, for the incident. His wife captured the moment in a video posted to Instagram.

Iser says he knew he’d be arrested, but didn’t realize officers would handcuff him in front of his daughter. He’s been arrested all over the world for similar incidents, but he claims no experience was as harrowing as his time spent in a Miami jail.

Iser describes his night in jail as a restless one in cold, unsanitary conditions. “The psychological violence of the American prison system is real, even for 24 hours,” he tells New Times. “The cell was very dirty and freezing cold. You could barely sleep because guards regularly shine a flashlight straight in your face through the window to check if you’ve harmed yourself. The food was almost inedible. I was hungry, but it was so bad that it made everything harder. The whole experience is very dehumanizing.”

The performance artist also alleges that he was not allowed to make an international call, which prevented him from reaching his wife to coordinate his $600 bail. The only reachable number he could use was the hotel landline, he says, alleging guards ignored his requests for someone to look it up for him.

“At one point, I asked a guard a question, and an inmate — who understood the system better — tried to explain things to me,” Iser tells New Times. “The guard told him not to get involved. A few minutes later, they took him away and put him in isolation.”

Miami jail representatives did not respond to New Times‘ request for comment before publication.

Iser describes his performance as “a temporary gesture of creation, not destruction,” adding it was “an act of artistic expression.” He says the display was a commentary on accessibility to art.

“In a world where access [to] art often depends on privilege, I wanted to give my daughter her own place — even at the price of my own freedom,” he wrote in the Instagram post documenting his arrest.

Iser initially described a somewhat friendly encounter with Miami Beach police in his video caption: “We talked for a while, shared a few laughs, and one even took a photo of me. I respect their work — and I was simply doing mine. They became part of the performance without meaning to, and I appreciated that moment of humanity.”

But he’s since amended the caption and taken a different tone: “The officers who first arrested me could have acted with more nuance…They handcuffed me immediately, before asking a single question — only afterwards did they ask whether I was alone with my daughter. Their reaction was purely procedural, a mechanical reflex applied to a moment that was profoundly human. It unintentionally became part of the performance, revealing its core tension: how institutions respond when innocence and freedom appear where they’re not expected.”

The consequences may be steep. Iser has since returned to Luxembourg, but he worries he won’t be able to visit the U.S. again. “I will soon face a trial,” he wrote in his amended Instagram caption. “An absurd consequence for a moment created with nothing but chalk, tenderness, and freedom.” Still, he adds, “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second.”