An homage to Duchamp
found in the yard of Joey Skaggs…
Could it be Fountain #18?









Rogue urinals
The Economist online
March 24, 2010

Has the art market gone Dada?

Critics tend to declare that Marcel Duchamp’s urinal, entitled “Fountain”, is the most important artwork of the 20th century. Yet its standing as a collectable object has always lagged behind its value as an idea. The work questioned notions of authenticity when Duchamp first purchased the mass-produced plumbing fixture and signed it “R. Mutt” in 1917. Now, over 40 years after the artist’s death, the problem of legitimacy remains relevant as unauthorised urinals have been discovered circulating in Italy. The art world loves paradoxical conceptual gestures, but it seems that someone might be taking the piss. (more…)

thanks Norman

Pop Artist Arrested For Gatorade Prank Involving Tiger Woods and Wife Elin Nordegren
blogs.wsj.com
by Evan Perez
January 13, 2010

Federal authorities arrested a Colorado man who allegedly relabeled bottles of Gatorade with pictures of golf star Tiger Woods and his wife Elin Nordegren and the word “unfaithful” as part of a pop art stunt.

Federal prosecutors in Denver on Wednesday charged Jason Eric Kay, 38 years old, with misbranding and altering food labels.

“From the onset, our primary concern has been the safety of our consumers and the integrity of our products,” said Karen May, a Gatorade spokesperson.

According to an affidavit signed by a Food and Drug Administration criminal investigation agent, Mr. Kay, an unemployed artist, bought one-quart bottles of Tropical Mango flavor Gatorade at stores in the Denver area and relabeled the bottles with labels he created using a photocopier at Kinko’s. The bottles were unopened and the product inside wasn’t tampered with. The bar codes functioned. The new label contained a Yahoo email address to contact the artist. The bottles were put on store shelves in the Denver area. (more…)

Bruce High Quality Foundation at Susan Inglett Gallery
New York
Dec. 8 – Jan. 23, 2010

The members of the artist collective Bruce High Quality Foundation carry out some very entertaining pranks, from following Robert Smithson’s posthumous Floating Island around New York Harbor in a dinghy to hurling themselves, clad in football gear, at public sculptures in Manhattan. Their performances, though witty and weird, are serious critiques of institutions. Carrying this to the next level, in September the five anonymous Bruces, all graduates of Cooper Union’s art program, with the art-commissioning agency Creative Time, launched the Bruce High Quality Foundation University on West Broadway, in New York, whose first course is Bring Your Own University (B.Y.O.U.). The collective is also mounting its second solo show, to run from December 4 through January 23, at the Susan Inglett Gallery. It comprises work responding to the university’s curriculum, which includes lecture topics like “Occult Shenanigans in 20th/21st Century Art,” “What’s a Metaphor? The B.H.Q.F.U. Detective Agency,” and “Edifying.” Together, the show and the university undermine the commercialized and market-driven platform that art schools today rest upon.

Read more about the Bruce High Quality Foundation:

From LensCulture.com, November 28, 2009:

Art Market Anarchy at Paris Photo 2009 — Free Photos!

A surprise act of art market anarchy took place just outside the entrance to the exclusive gala VIP opening night at Paris Photo 2009 last week. While the crowd of well-dressed international art collectors began to enter the giant hall at the Louvre, dozens of pranksters quickly dumped thousands and thousands of anonymous vintage photos into a giant heap, and tossed handfuls of photographs in the air. “Free, free, free!”

Even in this art-loving socialist capital, this act caused a momentary cognitive disconnect: (more…)

Submitted by artist Above:

Flying in the Wind (Paris, France)

Related links:

Hangin’ with big boys: Artist slips in stealth exhibit at Brooklyn Museum
by Mike McLaughlin
September 29th 2009
New York Daily News

Some artists will do anything to get their work shown in a museum.

Painter Mat Benote secretly hung one of his paintings in the Brooklyn Museum earlier this month – and it remained for two days before museum officials discovered it and snatched it off the wall.

“This is high-art graffiti,” said Benote, who lives in the city, but won’t say where. “It’s not really destroying anything.”

Museum officials declined to comment on Benote’s stunt, but a worker told the Brooklyn News the prank inflicted minor damage to a wall on the fourth-floor contemporary art gallery.

Benote’s escapade in the museum on Eastern Parkway was the final stop in a month-long tour. (more…)

‘Large Graffiti Slogan’ by Banksy
by John Lundberg of circlemakers.org
September 21, 2009

Banksy has created a new street piece, this time somewhat off the beaten track in Croydon, Surrey, on the outskirts of London.

The piece depicts a punk struggling to assemble a flat pack graffiti slogan – purchased from IEAK – on the wall behind him. The piece obviously references the home furnishing store IKEA. The placement of the piece is well thought out, as is usual for Banksy. Over the wall you can see the distinctive twin towers of IKEA, Croydon, with their yellow and blue branding. Also, the piece is situated between two billboards.

The text on the box reads ‘LARGE GRAFFITI SLOGAN (some assembly required)’, a witty reference to off the peg anarchy. The punk character with his distinctive five pointed Mohican haircut was previously featured in a painting on display at the Banksy Versus Bristol Museum Summer Show called ‘Don’t Forget Your Scarf’.

More photos: (more…)

Uncovering a Small Town (and Some Tall Tales)
by Randy Kennedy
The New York Times
September 18, 2009

Touring an archaeological dig site, you generally expect a glimpse of antiquities a little more antediluvian than a television antenna, a seven-inch single, a tailfin and a rotary-dial telephone. But an odd excavation site that recently opened to the public on Governors Island purports to offer just that: artifacts not of the Mesoamerican but of the midcentury variety, about 1954.

That is the year, at least according to Geert Hautekiet, the man in charge of exhibiting the site, that the United States Army, which then controlled the island, ordered a small, obscure civilian community there to be evacuated during the approach of a dangerous electrical storm. All of the buildings and houses in the town, Mr. Hautekiet said, were then inexplicably buried under sand by the military, which later appeared to deny that the village had ever existed. (more…)

Teenage graffiti artist accused of stealing ‘£500,000 box of pencils’ in feud with Damien Hirst
by Caroline Grant
Mail Online
05th September 2009

It might not sound like the crime of the century. But the theft of a box of pencils has reignited a bitter feud in the art world.

The pencils in question are actually worth £500,000 and form part of a £10million Damien Hirst art installation.

They were taken as a prank by a 17-year-old graffiti artist known as Cartrain, who claims he had no idea the ‘Faber Castell dated 1990 Mongol 482 Series’ were in fact rare and worth that amount.

He is currently on bail, and, if convicted, will be responsible for one of the highest value modern art thefts in Britain. (more…)

Banksy’s Westway Highwayman, by John Lundberg of circlemakers.org:

Coinciding with the last week of his show at the Bristol City Museum which has seen crowds queuing for up to 6 hours to view the exhibition, Banksy has created a new piece on the streets – or should that be roofs – of London.

The ‘Highwayman’ as it’s been dubbed has been painted on one of 2 towers that sit on the roof of ‘Great Western Studios’, a building that up until recently housed 140 artists and creative businesses. The building was previously a railway warehouse. The ‘Highwayman’ is situated next to the A40(M) Westway, a major highway that runs through West London.

The image which is over 20ft tall depicts a rearing horse with a capped rider holding a paint roller aloft. He’s also wearing a hat and scarf that are the trademarks of the infamous English rogue and highwayman Dick Turpin. On the back of the tower the words ‘LIVE FAST DRIVE SLOW” have been written and the 2 towers have been daubed with pink paint including a love heart with an arrow piercing it, most likely applied by filling a fire extinguisher with paint. The best view of the artwork is from the Westway.

(more…)

From Dystopic Horizons Realty:

The Head House!

Spy Emerson, D.H.R. Top Producer #1, has taken affordable artist housing to The Next Level. This is the ne’plus ultra in the working artists’ portable pied-à-terre domestic arsenal.

This coup d’état in chic urban living is perfect for the times when you either can’t make it back to your Cardboard Home or when you just need to take a break. With the Head House, you’re never far from home. And like its bigger sibling, it features a flexible floor plan, green construction, and passive heating!

The Head House is an earth friendlier and even more ecologically responsible alternative to the stately Cardboard Home. Think you can’t afford a Summer Home? Think again! This house makes time sharing a breeze. For instance, when not in primary use, this Head House serves as a shelter for at risk kittens, a nesting site for finches, a community resource center and playhouse for rodents, and at night, a cozy roosting place for bats. (more…)

In Queens, an Art Exhibition Gone Wild
By Libby Nelson
cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
August 14, 2009

Sated with free beer and wine, and plenty of it, the toga-wearing crowd flung microwaved tomatoes and morsels of baguette into the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park reflecting pool in Queens.

“Boats!” they yelled. “Boats! Boats! Boats!”

This was an art exhibition — a phrase that perhaps conjures a more subdued event. But the art, “Those About to Die Salute You,” involved moving humans, boats on water and those tomatoes. It was the creation of Duke Riley, whose work skews aquatic, fluid and unpredictable: He once built a wooden submarine, floated it too close to the Queen Mary 2, and was arrested. (more…)

Porsche Shooting Brake Is a Fake
by Richard S. Chang
wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/
August 13, 2009

Last month, a mysterious Porsche shooting brake appeared on the Web. It arrived courtesy of a camera phone video, which showed what looked to be a test mule, clad in black primer, parked on the sidewalk of what looked to be an industrial area — of Germany?

Autoblog wrote:

Looking something like the product of a one-night-stand between said Porsche and either a Volvo C30 or an original BMW Z3-based M Coupe, the supposed mule is wearing all black, but apart from that, it appears to be undisguised. Of course, this could be a one-off made by someone with no official connection to Porsche (Rinspeed, anyone?), but then again, it could be a harbinger of a model to come.

The news spread like wildfire (more…)

Submitted by Michael Dare July 6, 2009:

Sour Grapes Obituary: How Karl Malden ruined my life
by Michael Dare

It’s completely personal. Between me and him. Karl Malden fucked up my life, he really did. No matter how much I dig his talent – and I certainly do, he’s a Strasberg acting God, and I studied with Strasberg in New York in 1970 where he was treated as such, so I know – Malden is still the premiere putz in my professional life. Or was. He’s dead now. Great. Now I get to be pissed off at a dead man.

I know you’re sick of celebrity obituaries in this horrible week of death and chaos, but this one’s different. At this point I’ve got to pin you to the wall like a drunk in a Hollywood bar, slurring my speech, hot breath in your face, “You don’t understand, no matter how good he was in Baby Doll, I’m glad he’s dead, that bastard…”

Luckily, I’m not that drunk. Here’s what happened 20 years ago: (more…)