The video "I am an Artist" shows Les Levine walking down Bowery Street in Manhattan, a familiar setting, and one that at the time the film was made was largely populated by bohemian arty types and the socially disadvantaged. Over and over again Levine keeps repeating the sentence, "I am an artist, I don’t want to be involved, and ignores the passers"- by who speak to him. To underline the simulated provocation and arrogance of the statement, he is wearing sun glasses. Levine’s performance was not originally intended to be a joke. From our point of view today this strikes us as an ironic commentary on the conservative view of art as art for art’s sake. In 1975 this was still a force to be reckoned with, especially as represented by the well-known New York art critic Clement Greenberg, a champion of abstract painting. Levine here adopts the mode of statement to convey his critical view of this position. He himself locates his artistic works in a social context, and calls the exclusiveness of the art establishment into question. As far back as 1965, he made a video on Bowery with the title Bum, in which he got the homeless to talk about their life on the street.