The History of Pranks - The Art of the Prank

November 25, 2025December 12, 2025

Santa Claus is coming to town!

You better watch out…

“‘Most hated event on the planet’: New movie shows the rise of San Francisco’s SantaCon,” by Dan Gentile, SFGATE, October 31, 2025.

The trailer just dropped for ‘SANTACON,’ which premieres at the DOC NYC film festival on Nov. 13.

There are few San Francisco events as divisive as SantaCon. The yearly, debauchery-filled bar crawl features hundreds, if not thousands, of costumed Santas rampaging through cities across the country, leaving a trail of inebriated chaos in their wake. But it wasn’t always this way.

A new film is set to premiere on Nov. 13 at the DOC NYC film festival and is simply titled “SANTACON,” directed by Seth Porges, whose previous work includes “Class Action Park” and “How to Rob A Bank.” The first trailer, released on Friday, begins with footage of violent Santas and also shows Jimmy Fallon mentioning the New York Police Department’s understanding of the event as “the nightmare before Christmas.” Local news anchors declare that locals want the event to be canceled, and text appears on the screen proclaiming SantaCon the “most hated event on the planet.” Read the whole article here.

November 25, 2025

You can’t shine shit

Unless you have a lot of money!

“Maurizio Cattelan Is No Duchamp,” by Ed Simon, Hyperallergic, November 19, 2025.

One elevated the prosaic. The other merely gilded the familiar.

In 1913, when Igor Stravinsky premiered his orchestral work The Rite of Spring at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Parisian audiences were so incensed by the discordant score that a riot broke out. Four years later, New Yorkers were only slightly more genteel toward French artist Marcel Duchamp’s submission of a ready-made upside-down urinal autographed by the fictitious creator “R. Mutt” to the inaugural exhibition of New York’s Society of Independent Artists.

A symphonic paean to pagan energy and a urinal may seem disparate in intention, but both Stravinsky and Duchamp’s works expressed the radicalism of the early 20th-century avant-garde, questioning certainties and upending values — to paraphrase Karl Marx, making all that is solid melt into air. For Duchamp, “Fountain” wasn’t just a provocation, but also a philosophical comment about the nature of art itself: that a prosaic object can be elevated by framing alone. According to critic Margan Falconer in How to be Avant-Garde: Modern Artists and the Quest to End Art (2025), Duchamp was asking, “Why couldn’t art be a seamless, enveloping, immersive environment in which everyone will live and work?” Read the whole article here.

November 25, 2025

Science is catching up to Joey Skaggs

Been there, done that! Watch Pandora’s Hope movie, which is featured as a hoax-in-progress in Andrea Marini’s Art of the Prank movie.

“Scientists are racing to grow human teeth in the lab,” by Jacopo Prisco, CNN, October 23, 2025.

It’s not surprising that many people fear the dentist. Replacing a tooth often requires invasive surgery and implanting a titanium screw into a patient’s jawbone, then waiting months for that to strengthen into an artificial root, before attaching a crown or cap on top of it.

But research groups around the world are working to find ways to implant or grow real biological teeth in a human jaw. Read the whole article here.

November 12, 2025

From the Vault: Joey Skaggs’ 1979 Wall Street Shoe Shine

Dime for a shine? Fuhgeddaboudit!

In 1979, Joey Skaggs, SVA students and friends, make a statement about runaway inflation by charging ten times more than normal for a luxury shoe shine on Wall Street for workers who easily made ten times more than the average person.

Check out the story behind the Wall Street Shoe Shine here.

November 12, 2025November 13, 2025

Bring on the Clowns!

Using the power of humor and satire to de-escalate confrontations.

“Why people are really wearing silly costumes at protests against Trump,” by The Conversation, AlterNet, October 24, 2025.

Three frogs, a shark, a unicorn and a Tyrannosaurus rex dance in front of a line of heavily armoured police in riot gear.

Over the past few weeks, activists taking part in protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the United States have donned inflatable animal costumes. The aim is to disrupt the Trump administration’s claim that the protests are violent “hate America” rallies.

The result is a sight to behold, with many encounters between police and protestors going viral.

Whether they know it or not, these costumed activists are contributing to a rich history of using humour and dress to mobilise against and challenge power. Read the whole article here.