…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
The April Fools’ Day parade this year was led by a billboard truck projecting images of Joey Skaggs as the Grim Reaper with his Mobile Guillotine sculpture mounted on the back of a tricycle. The theme was Democracy at the Guillotine. The “parade” started at 59th St and 5th Ave, stopped at Trump Tower and then went to Washington Square Park and beyond.
Here are some photos:
New York’s irreverent April Fools’ Day Parade returns, poking fun once again at the past year’s displays of hype, hypocrisy, deceit, bigotry and downright stupidity. Nothing is sacred. Our satire knows no bounds.
For the 39th year, the public is encouraged to participate, in or out of costume, with or without floats, and may join the procession at any point along the parade route. Floats can be no wider than 10’ and no longer than 30’. They can be self-propelled, towed, pushed or pulled. Customized bicycles, tricycles, baby carriages and aerial balloons are welcome.
The parade will form at Grand Army Plaza at 5th Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan at 12:00 noon sharp on Monday, April 1, 2024, and head down 5th Avenue to Trump Tower and then to Washington Square Park for the climactic crowning of the King of Fools.
This year’s parade will feature a giant mobile billboard truck featuring “Democracy at the Guillotine” which encourages all to vote to save our democracy.
The parade press release and downloadable images are here: http://aprilfoolsdayparade.com
Here are some of the images:
Please share the message widely.
San Francisco Independent Film Festival (SF IndieFest): Thursday, February 8-18, 2024. Online for 10 days. Tickets are here.
New Jersey Film Festival, Spring 2024: Friday, February 9, 2024. In-Person at 7 PM in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ AND Online for 24 Hours. Tickets are here.
Anita LaBelle has penned an insightful review of the film for New Jersey Stage Magazine.
Reminder: “Joey Skaggs: Celebrity Sperm Bank” will be streaming free until May 31, 2023 at the Pérez Art Museum Miami Exhibition, Perpetual Motion, Curated by Barbara London.
The short film “Joey Skaggs: Celebrity Sperm Bank” is one of ten featured videos in Perpetual Motion, foundational media art curator Barbara London’s first streaming-on-demand exhibition at Pérez Art Museum Miami. Perpetual Motion explores how technological change, mass media, and the universality of moving images impact the dynamic activity of contemporary video artists.
Running December 6, 2023 through May 31, 2024, the films in this exhibition will be available free for streaming on PAMMTV (registration required) where viewers around the world can access cutting-edge video art through their web browsers, mobile phones, tablets, or Apple TV.
Other participating artists include Kamari Carter, Richard Garet, Bang Geul Han, Cornelia Parker, Wong Ping, Zina Saro-Wiwa, Aki Sasamoto, Federico Solmi, and Claudix Vanesix.
…with a sense of humor
Apocalyptic Birdhouses Touch Down in NYC, Elaine Velie, Hyperallergic.com, November 26, 2023
Artist Paul Gagner’s sculptural avian dwellings offer an absurdist take on the core structures of small-town Americana.
Near Highland Park, a few square blocks of Queens’s Ridgewood neighborhood jut southward into Bushwick, Brooklyn. The industrial area boasts clubs, recording studios, a slew of warehouses, and now, 10 carefully arranged birdhouses in artist Paul Gagner’s newly opened exhibition Calamityville. They’re displayed in a small outdoor exhibition space co-run by Lower Manhattan’s Chart Gallery and the artist-run Marvin Gardens Gallery next door.
Gagner’s tiny homes, arranged on moveable iron pipes, depict the core structures of small-town Americana. They also each depict a disaster: Flames ravage a fire department, a UFO beams up a church, an asteroid crashes into a city hall, and a sea monster wraps around a movie theater.
Gagner has long made art that ventures into the humorous and absurd, but he started making birdhouses in 2020 after he bought a home upstate with his wife. He had lived in the city for over 20 years and found himself inside a cozy new house immersed in nature at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There was no one else looking at my yard at the time, so I thought it would be funny to make art for birds,” Gagner said… Read the whole article here.