Artist sneaks AI-generated print into National Museum Cardiff gallery

An artist sneaked an AI-generated print on to a gallery wall before bemused visitors alerted museum staff.

The print was hung up at National Museum Cardiff by secretive artist Elias Marrow, who said his Empty Plate piece – depicting a young boy in school uniform holding a plate – was viewed by a “few hundred people” before it was removed.

One visitor who noticed the artwork asked a member of staff about it, but said the museum worker “admitted they had no idea about the piece or when it arrived”.

An Amgueddfa Cymru spokesperson said: “An item was placed without permission on a gallery wall in National Museum Cardiff. We were alerted to this and have removed the item in question.”

The artwork, generated using artificial intelligence before being printed off, was hung by Marrow in the museum’s contemporary section, with his website saying Empty Plate “represents Wales in 2025”.

Marrow was interested in “how public institutions decide what’s worth showing, and what happens when something outside that system appears within it”.

He said using artificial intelligence to create it was “part of the natural evolution of artistic tools”, adding he sketched the image before he used AI.

“AI is here to stay, to gatekeep its capability would be against the beliefs I hold dear about art,” he said.

Morrow said visitors had responded well to it and took photos.

The artist, who said similar stunts he had carried out at Bristol Museum and Tate Modern were not “approved, sanctioned, or acknowledged”, denied it was vandalism.

“The work isn’t about disruption. It’s about participation without permission,” he said.

“I’m not asking permission, but I’m not causing harm either.”

One museum visitor from Ireland who saw the piece on 29 October said they thought it might have been “performance art”, but then “quickly realised that this was a guerrilla piece”.

They said they wondered “why such a poor quality AI piece was hanging there without being labelled as AI”, and approached staff only to be told no-one knew what it was.