The Cubicle Is a Canvas at a Midtown Art Show

David Muenzer, a receptionist at the law firm Latham & Watkins , was feeling bored and curious one day in February. He decided to explore the firm’s storage space.

Then, in a turn of events that would make for a recession-era “Alice in Wonderland,” Mr. Muenzer, 24, discovered two vacant floors of 885 Third Avenue in Midtown. It was a ghost town of abandoned cubicles, complete with motivational posters, name plates and white boards with plans for another day at work. A bit of snooping revealed that the 32,000-square-foot space had been vacated by Morgan Stanley in 2008, amid the housing crisis.

“Within seconds of being in here, I knew,” said Mr. Muenzer. The space had a feeling, he said, that “underscores the absence of the worker.”

Mr. Muenzer, a receptionist by day and conceptual artist by night , convinced his employers to let him use the floors to host an art show. (The law firm had leased the space but would not begin renovating until the fall.) Rather than stripping the office to give it the conventional feel of the white cube galleries that dot Chelsea, he kept the office as was — complete with pale yellow walls, emerald carpet, pushpins and plants.

The artist Rebecca Lieb filled an office with dirt. Trisha Baga hung a trophy around the neck of a potted tree. Mr. Muenzer stuffed the mail room with letters dyed with food coloring. Craig Kalpakjian placed a looped video of an endless hallway at the end of a hallway. Rachel Harrison overturned a cubicle wall and painted it with the name “Julie Taymor.”

“When you’ve been exhibiting for a long time, which I have now — yeah, this is a slightly unique situation,” said Ms. Harrison, who surrounded a water cooler with hundreds of pounds of gray material, giving it the effect of being engorged in a stone cave. “It’s not like we’re in Nebraska and it’s someone’s father’s law office.”

No, 885 Third Avenue is not someone’s father’s Midwestern law office. It is known as the Lipstick Building, for its design: a curving column of red marble designed by the Modernist architect Philip Johnson. More recently, it has become known for having housed Bernard Madoff’s operations, on its 17th floor. In 2010, the building’s owner filed for bankruptcy.

Morgan Stanley’s decision to leave in 2008 was also product of a tough economy. “It was too expensive,” said Pen Pendleton, a Morgan Stanley spokesman.

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