True to form, Anna Sorokin looked like a million bucks on Friday night in New Orleans, from her scarlet lipstick down to her ankle monitor. Sorokin became a celebrity anti-hero in 2019 when she was convicted in New York of larceny and theft.

Using the name Anna Delvey, Sorokin had impersonated a wealthy socialite, while duping friends and swindling financial institutions out of $275,000. She was released on bail and placed on house arrest in 2022.

Sorokin appeared at the International House Hotel on Camp Street during the unveiling of a recently restored mural by British street art superstar Banksy. She was listed by publicist Kelly Cutrone as the co-host of the event, though the reason for her presence was unclear.

After the painting was unveiled, Sorokin posed for photos, but did not address the audience.

Rebel artists

For Sorokin to be associated with the art event seemed especially perplexing since her crimes included "persuading members of Manhattan's elite to invest in a members-only arts club named after herself, all the while using the ill-gotten funds to pay for the very designer lifestyle that had first allured them," as the New York Times put it.

Nonetheless, the ex-convict/media sensation certainly added a strange celebrity sizzle to the proceedings.

When asked to explain why Sorokin was part of the scene, Sean Cummings, the owner of the hotel and co-owner of the Banksy painting, said simply that "she's a rebel and an artist." Earlier in the evening, Cummings told the crowd that he was drawn to Banksy, because the secretive English street artist is a rebel.

Earlier this year, Sorokin appeared on the Dancing with the Stars television show, using the name Anna Delvey, and wearing her ankle monitor. When she was eliminated from the contest, Sorokin reportedly said that the show's producers "only cared about exploiting me for attention."

Perfectly capturing the post-Katrina vibe

The sensational Ms. Sorokin aside, the centerpiece of the evening was the ten-foot-tall concrete block mural that stood in the hotel lobby, "guarded" on each side by actors dressed as Beefeaters - British palace guardsmen.

The mural, referred to as "Boy on a Life Preserver Swing" was painted on the side of a flood-ruined barroom in the Lower Ninth Ward in 2008. It was one of 17 murals painted by Banksy that poetically captured the post-Hurricane Katrina recovery era.

The "Boy on a Life Preserver Swing," which even then may have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, was swiftly obliterated with red spray paint. The vandalized mural was overpainted with house paint, before the building was eventually demolished.

Art resurrection

There was every reason to believe that the mural was lost forever. Happily, a dump truck driver, who recognized the importance of the artwork, preserved the concrete blocks. In 2021 he sold them to Cummings and painting conservator Elise Grenier.

Using a newly invented chemical compound, Grenier was eventually able to restore the painting, though it was deliberately not restored to perfection.

"To have the climate and have time wear on it and tell the story authentically," Cummings said, was preferable "to being pristinely restored."