Art Pranks - The Art of the Prank

April 1, 2023December 15, 2023

Happy April Fools’ Day!

Sarah Rose Sharp of Hyperallergic has created a collection of images to put a smile on your face!

Prince Harry to Star in New Van Gogh Biopic, by Sarah Rose Sharp, Hyperallergic, April 1, 2023

In a casting decision sure to make ripples all over Hollywood, representatives for Prince Harry have confirmed that he will play Vincent van Gogh in an upcoming biopic about the infamous painter. It seems clear now that the ex-royal is not only determined to follow his wife, Meghan Markle, away from life in the British monarchy but into her former profession of acting.

“Prince Harry is thrilled about this opportunity to further raise awareness about mental health issues,” said his talent agent, Guy Guyerson. “He identifies with Vincent van Gogh in so many ways.”

Read the rest here and scroll down to see links to additional concepts. Warning: these may not be available for long.

Here’s a sampling:

Saudi Arabia Announces $1M “Freedom of Expression” Art Award
British Museum Offers Greece “Exclusive NFT” of the Parthenon Marbles
MoMA to Co-Curate Exhibition With NYPD
Mediocre Painting Thought AI-Generated Revealed as Work of Real Artist

April 16, 2019December 15, 2023

r/Place: Recollections of a Pop-up Online Subculture

r/Place, an incredible 2017 reddit experiment with a simple premise and strict parameters, stands out for the spirit of challenge and community it ignited. It brought the best of collaborative street art into the heart of the digital realm, it earned its place in the annals of internet culture, and it’s worth revisiting and remembering. Here’s how it went down, through the eyes of one very engaged participant.

(If you’re unfamiliar with reddit, here’s a pretty good primer.)

“The story of r/Place. As told by a foot soldier for r/Mexico.”
By Arturo Gutierrez
ART + Marketing
April 3, 2017

I’m sure other historians can tell you who was the first. Others much more knowledgeable than me who can pinpoint where exactly in the vast Canvas did the cursors of hundreds aimed themselves into a singular area, and willed order out of the chaos. But I’m not the one to tell.

Instead, what I saw as a bystander that April 1st was the emergence of life, color, and memes of all sizes and kinds growing almost by magic. And as the hours passed, as I laid a pixel here, waited, and laid another pixel there, the whole Canvas evolved and grew between each of my visits. It was an amazing sight to behold. An inspiring feat of human ingenuity, humor, and improvised politics in slow motion.

Yes, that’s right. For even in these early hours, even before the dedicated subreddits, the forums, Discord channels and massive bot armies of the later days, a silent, wordless body of politics was being established right before our eyes. Read more.

November 6, 2017December 15, 2023

Bulgarian Superhero Shenanigans

Bulgarian vandals are disrespecting Soviet military monuments, and the Russian government wants them to cut it out right now. H/t Naomi.

“Russia Wants Bulgarians to Stop Painting Soviet Monuments To Look Like American Superheroes”
By Staff
Earthly Mission
October 20, 2017

According to a report by the Moscow Times, pranksters in Bulgaria are repainting Soviet-era monuments so that Soviet military heroes look like American Superheroes. Needless to say, the Russians are not too happy about it.

Watch the video and then read more:

November 6, 2017December 15, 2023

Sim Cities

Photographer Gregor Sailer’s new book focuses on incredibly detailed, entirely uninhabited, completely fake urban landscapes.

“These Cities Might Look Real But They’re 100% Fake”
By Laura Mallonee
Wired
October 25, 2017

Junction City has all the trappings of an Iraqi town: a brightly painted mosque; shops adorned with Arabic script; the occasional humvee or tank rumbling by. But you won”t find it anywhere near Mosul. It’s a stage set at Fort Irwin, in the middle of California”s Mojave Desert, where US troops simulate fighting insurgents.

“It”s a lonely place, full of buildings no one will ever live in,” says photographer Gregor Sailer. “It”s like a ghost city””the wind smashing the doors, blowing through the streets.”

Sailer captured Junction City and 21 other fake urban landscapes for his fascinating new book The Potemkin Village. They include a New York-themed town in Sweden built to test cars for road safety; a Russian city with elaborate facades disguising forlorn buildings; and a Dutch hamlet in China that tourists visit for a taste of Europe. “Sometimes they”re more real and other times they”re more an illusion,” Sailer says. “I”m jumping between these two worlds, and that”s what makes it exciting for me.” Read more.

April 11, 2017December 15, 2023

Ubiquitous Bard Portrait Is More Than Meets the Eye

Everything is not as it seems… Take for example, the exalted portrait of William Shakespeare and it’s uncanny resemblance to a portrait of Queen Elizabeth. Thank you Lawrence Gerald.

“The Prank of the Face: Unmasking the ‘Droeshout’ Portrait of William Shakespeare”
by Simon Miles
SirBacon.org

In 1977, art historian and pioneer computer artist Lillian Schwartz made a remarkable observation with potentially far-reaching implications for the Shakespeare authorship debate.

She took a copy of the famous “Droeshout” portrait of William Shakespeare which appears in the First Folio of 1623, and scanned it into her computer. Then she did the same with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth 1. She overlaid the two images one on top of the other, scaling them to the same size. Then, adjusting their relative transparency so that they could be readily compared, she noticed something very strange: there were certain portions of the Shakespeare portrait which exactly reproduced the features of Elizabeth.

It was not a question of an approximate copy, or a close facsimile, or a loose likeness. There was an exact reproduction of the key sections.

Her discovery, extraordinary as it appears to be, seems to have attracted almost no commentary in the intervening years. It”s perhaps not hard to see why. There does not seem to be any obvious reason why a portrait of Shakespeare should share elements of a portrait of Elizabeth. I must admit that when I first heard of this discovery, my initial reaction was to dismiss it out of hand as too ridiculous to contemplate. The internet is awash with foolish claims of identity between different people based on dubious photo-shop manipulations, wishful thinking and outright stupidity. This claim, I thought when I first heard about it, no doubt fell directly into such a category. That, however, was before I looked at the superimposed images for myself.

Watch the video here:

In this short article, I would like to revisit Lillian Schwartz” original discovery, with an open mind. I will present the images, and allow the reader to make up her own mind. Then, once we have seen for ourselves the extent to which the two portraits share common elements, we will explore some possible implications of this challenging discovery. Read more.