Moderator - The Art of the Prank

November 23, 2023December 15, 2023

The High Cost of Dissent in Russia

Droplifting–adding objects or messages to store shelves to make a political statement–is treated as a minor irritant in the United States. Placing 5 labels protesting Russia’s war against Ukraine on grocery store items has yielded 7 years in a penal colony for artist Aleksandra Skochilenko.

If we take our freedoms for granted, we might lose them.

Russian artist jailed for seven years over Ukraine war price tag protest, by Andrew Roth, The Guardian, November 16, 2023

Aleksandra Skochilenko replaced five supermarket price tags with pieces of paper urging shoppers to stop the war

…“How fragile must the prosecutor’s belief in our state and society be, if he thinks that our statehood and public safety can be brought down by five small pieces of paper?” said Skochilenko, 33, in a final statement in court on Thursday.

“Despite being behind bars, I am freer than you,” she said. “I’m not afraid to be different from others. Perhaps that’s why my state is so afraid of me and others like me and keeps me caged like a dangerous animal.” Read the whole article here.

November 23, 2023December 15, 2023

Encouraging Bad Behavior

A Paris retail store challenged people to try to steal their shoes. Thing is, you had to run faster than their world-class sprinter, Méba-Mickaël Zeze. Only two out of 74 people got away with the goods.

This Paris store lets customers steal shoes – but there’s one catch, by Marchelle Abrahams, iol.co.za

Click to watch the video:

November 23, 2023December 15, 2023

Who Are You Kidding?

Fox News reported on October 16, 2023: Bigfoot and Sasquatch: Longtime resident reveals legends, pranks after latest ‘proof’, By Chris Eberhart, October 16, 2023.

Whoa! This doesn’t hold a candle to the escape of Big Foot from Peppe Scaggolini’s (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs’) Tiny Top Circus in 2014. Hailed as the world’s only pataphysical circus, Big Foot was caged and on exhibition in Washington Square Park when it escaped and unfortunately got lost in the New York City subway system. Scaggolini is still offering a $1,000,000 reward for its capture and return.

November 23, 2023December 15, 2023

A Home for the Distasteful

The Museu de l’Art Prohibit opened to the public on October 26, 2023.

Barcelona Museum Gives Censored Art a Permanent Home, by Maya Pontone, Hyperallergic.com, October 10, 2023

The new Museu de l’Art Prohibit will house a collection of more than 200 artworks that have been removed, banned, or denounced.

Where does art deemed controversial go after it’s been removed, banned, or denounced? One possible destination: the Museu de l’Art Prohibit, opening later this month in Barcelona to house a wide assortment of censored artworks.

Spanning two floors with over 200 paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, and more by mostly modern and contemporary artists including Gustav Klimt, Ai Wei Wei, Tania Bruguera, and Banksy, the museum’s diverse collection explores the censorship of art due to “political, social or religious reasons.” Read more here.

September 27, 2023December 15, 2023

The Steak was Real but the Restaurant was Fake

The only item on the “To Go” menu was the restaurant itself.

How NYC’s fine-dining elite got pranked by Gen Zer’s fake steakhouse — complete with milk servers, ‘celebs,’ and wedding proposal by Hannah Frishberg, September 25, 2023

This Manhattan restaurant is a tough reservation to book — because it doesn’t exist.

The foodie gentry who gathered for their dinner at Mehran’s Steakhouse this weekend believed they’d at last gotten off the years-long waitlist for a highly exclusive, 100-year-old chop house, which finally had an available table at its Lower East Side location.

In reality, what some 140 diners experienced this Saturday evening was an elaborate prank pulled off by a 21-year-old AI startup founder — and some 65 of his friends.

The practical joke of a white tablecloth institution was born during the pandemic, in 2021, when Mehran Jalali’s 16 housemates decided to commemorate the biweekly steak dinners he’d cook them by marking their Upper East Side home as a chop house on Google Maps.

The mostly teenage roomies all left glowing reviews for the newfound institution, leading to intrigued strangers showing up at their door seeking steak.

Mehran then made a website for their solidly booked, “revolutionary steak experience” and, by the end of 2022, had accrued a 2,600-person waitlist. Read the whole article here.