Art Pranks

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Artist Above: Flying in the Wind

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Filed under: Art Pranks, Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

Submitted by artist Above:

Flying in the Wind (Paris, France)

Related links:

  • “Bridging the Divide” by Above
  • Above and Beyond
  • The Naked Truth: 3D Urban Art by Above
  • Not Famous… Yet

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    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.

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    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…)

    Banksy Takes On IKEA Croydon

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    Filed under: Art Pranks, Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

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

    banksy_ikea-200Banksy 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…)

    Geert Hautekiet: “Never trust Belgians”

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    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.

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    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…)

    Damien Hirst: When a Pencil Becomes a Hammer

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    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.

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    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

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    Filed under: Art Pranks, Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

    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.

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    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.

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    (more…)

    Dystopic Horizons Realty: Unreal Estate Agents

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    From Dystopic Horizons Realty:


    The Head House!

    The Head House-200Spy 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…)

    Artist Duke Riley & New York Museums Face-Off

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

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    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…)

    Non-existent Porsche Goes Viral

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

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    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…)

    Sour Grapes Obituary: How Karl Malden Ruined My Life

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    Submitted by Michael Dare July 6, 2009:


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

    maldenkarl

    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…)

    Introducing Manhattan Airport

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    Filed under: Art Pranks, Parody

    Submitted by Josh Jasper:


    From the Manhattan Airport Foundation Web site:

    The Manhattan Airport Foundation is a land-use constituency committed to the immediate development of a viable and centrally-located international air transportation hub in New York City for the benefit of all New Yorkers.

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    Mission:

    To provide New Yorkers with a viable and centrally-located international air transportation hub. It is our firm conviction that if you cannot bring the people to the airport, you must bring the airport to the people.

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    Project Vision: (more…)

    Barrel Monster Artist Gets 50 Lashes

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    Barrel Monster Artist Sentenced
    by Shirley Min
    Raleigh MyNC.com
    July 21, 2009

    Raleigh, N.C. – It wasn’t a political statement about ongoing construction on Hillsborough Street.

    It was just some art that was meant to make people smile.

    That’s what “Barrel Monster” creator Joseph Carnevale said Tuesday after appearing in a Wake County courtroom on misdemeanor larceny and destruction of property charges.

    Watch the video:

    (more…)

    Trick Photos

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    thanks Erin

    See more trick photos here.

    Air Pressure, by Paul McCarthy

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    Filed under: Art Pranks, Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

    As seen on sexblo.gs


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    Paul McCarthy: “Black Plug, Butt Plug”, 2007 (Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London und Paul McCarthy / Foto: Misha de Ridder)

    See it at the Air Pressure exhibition in Utrecht this Summer [July 4-September 13, 2009].


    Related posts:

  • Pinocchio Escapees Captured
  • Nature Calls: Giant Turd Blows Away
  • Antony Gormley’s One & Other

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    Filed under: Art Pranks, Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

    Submitted by W.J. Elvin III:

    Watching each other… Live coverage starts Monday on Sky Arts


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    From the Sky Arts Web site:

    This summer, Antony Gormley’s One & Other takes over London’s Trafalgar Square in one of the biggest public art projects the country has seen. 2400 people will get their chance to make their mark in the glare of the public eye and our cameras. We will be streaming everyone’s hour of fame live on our dedicated One & Other website.

    Even the most dedicated would struggle to see every bit of this round the clock, 100 day -project, so to make sure you don’t miss out on the best bits, we’re bringing you a live show from Trafalgar Square every Friday at 7pm. Here’s what’s coming up in the forthcoming shows:

    The launch
    8:15am, 6 July on Sky Arts 1 / HD

    Highlights of the first week
    7pm, 10 July on Sky Arts 1 / HD

    Tune in for the weekly highlights show with the best plinthers and interviews at 7pm every Friday from 10 July on Sky Arts 1 / HD

    Read more about this event:

  • Living statues chosen for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth, by Ian Johnston, 14 June 2009
  • Fun, but is it art?, by Stephen Armstrong, The Sunday Times, July 5, 2009