Political Challenges - The Art of the Prank

October 6, 2025

Censoring Art

It’s too close to the truth to be allowed to exist.

“Michelangelo to Banksy: The controversial artworks that fell foul of the law – and were erased,” by Kelly Grovier, BBC, September 13, 2025.

Prefiguring Banksy’s latest Royal Courts of Justice mural depicting a judge attacking a protester, are centuries of art history where works have been censored or edited.

It could hardly be more brutal in its depiction of the administration of judicial might: a judge, arm raised, wielding a makeshift weapon, delivers his ruling, blow by blow, on the body of the accused, who lies at his feet. No, I’m not talking about Banksy’s recent (and rapidly erased) mural, which the street artist sprayed onto the side of the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 7 September. Banksy’s work, which satirically depicted an English judge in traditional wig and gown, pummelling a prone protester with his gavel as splatters of blood became the very message emblazoned on the blank placard that the protester carried, was partially eradicated by authorities three days later.

Read the whole article here.

September 19, 2025September 19, 2025

WALK RIGHT! Walks the Line

We need more militarization, more rules, less 1st Amendment protection and definitely more fear in our city streets. We need to bring back WALK RIGHT!

Back in 1984, when mercenary vigilantes like the Guardian Angels were “reclaiming” NYC subways, Joey Skaggs launched WALK RIGHT! an ad hoc group of vigilante sidewalk etiquette enforcers who patrolled the streets to make New York a better place to live and walk.

Here’s a short tease from Joey Skaggs: WALK RIGHT! oral history film.

WALK RIGHT published 66 rules for walking, including:
*Pedestrians must choose one lane and stay in it.
*No changing directions except at designated areas.
*No stopping unless in the shopping lane.
*No eating, gesticulating, or umbrellas held lower than 5’10”.

CNN and local news covered it as serious public policy. But it was satire then—and it is satire now.

NOTE: Social media influencers have recently “invented” ways to tame our unruly pedestrians, like, Matt Bass with “Bad Walkers” and Cameron Roh who is rating walkers in New York City.

They are to be forgiven because they weren’t born when WALK RIGHT! ruled the New York City streets. And they can’t be expected to do any research that might deter them from promoting a great idea to gain sponsorship $$ or eyeballs for their products.

September 1, 2025

Joey Skaggs interviewed by Mark Borkowski about creative dissent on BBC Radio 4

OUTRAGE INC, an audio documentary by Mark Borkowski, aired on BBC Radio 4, August 23, 2025:

“From Suffragette arsonists to soup on sunflowers – why the stunt still matters.

Legendary publicist Mark Borkowski takes a no-prisoners look at the history of the protest stunt – the noisy, theatrical interventions that have rattled the establishment for over a century.

With fascinating examples from the BBC archive and interviews with Led By Donkeys, The Centre for Political Beauty, Joey Skaggs, The Yes Men, veteran activist Jamie Kelsey Fry and Clare Farrell from XR.”

“We criminalise the political stunt at our peril. It is a crucial art form that is impossible to ignore”, Mark Borkowski, The Guardian, 20 Aug 2025.

Listen to the full documentary on BBC Radio 4 (only available in the UK). For others, the interview is above.

August 20, 2025August 20, 2025

Is it a Bird, Is it a Plane, No! It’s Gavin Newsom to the Rescue

Maggie Reed, @mermaidmamamags, asks: Are We Doing This Right MAGA? And Adam Wren of Politico, ‘splains how Gavin Newsom is the new Trump troll.

Click this link to play the video:

“How Gavin Newsom trolled his way to the top of social media,” by Adam Wren, Politico, August 20, 2025.

With an inescapable, smashmouth, all-caps-laden and meme-filled X account, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is holding a mirror up to MAGA — and MAGA doesn’t like what it sees.

There’s Newsom on Mount Rushmore. There’s Newsom getting prayed over by Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock and an angelic, winged Hulk Hogan. There’s Newsom posting in all caps, saying his mid-cycle redistricting proposal has led “MANY” people to call him “GAVIN CHRISTOPHER ‘COLUMBUS’ NEWSOM (BECAUSE OF THE MAPS!). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”

If this genre of social media post provokes deja vu, there’s a good reason for that.

Read the whole article here.

August 8, 2025

A Trumpish Homage to Trump

Artist Andres Serrano wants you to live the fantasy:

“Andres Serrano Proposes Trump Altar for the Venice Biennale,” by Isa Farfan, Hyperallergic, July 24, 2025.

“It makes sense to me that for America’s 250th Celebration, there’s no one better to represent America than the President,” the photographer told Hyperallergic.

New York City-born artist and provocateur Andres Serrano wants the United States Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale to showcase his apparently uncritical display of more than a thousand Trump memorabilia items, including a flattering, warm-hued portrait of the president he took in 2004 as part of his series America.

Serrano, who rose to notoriety in the late ’80s for “Piss Christ” (1987), a photograph of a crucifix that he plunged into a receptacle of his own urine on the National Endowment for the Arts’ dime, submitted his Trump-themed Venice proposal to the US Department of State ahead of its deadline later this month. The artist calls his American flag-saturated vision The Game: All Things Trump, a reference to an underperforming board game released by Milton Bradley Company in 1989.

Read the whole article here.