…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
Knitters cover Pittsburgh’s Warhol Bridge in yarn
AP.com
August 12, 2013
PITTSBURGH (AP) – More than 1,800 knitters have covered Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Bridge in 3,000 feet of colorful yarn.
Volunteers worked all weekend to attach 580 blanket-size, hand-knitted panels to the pedestrian walkways on the downtown bridge, and riggers attached larger panels to the towers.
The planning and permitting started about 18 months ago, said Amanda Gross, 29, who had the idea for the project.
Submitted by Danny Rollingstone on the AOTP Facebook page:
Update: City Trashes Crisco Can Artist Installed At Fist To ‘Ease Bankruptcy Pain’
by Bill McGraw
deadlinedetroit.com
July 29, 2013
Update, Monday, Aug. 4: BuzzFeed names the Crisco can among the best street art for 2013.
In what he said was a gesture of sympathy to a bankrupt city, a Detroit artist jumped out of his pickup truck early Tuesday at Woodward and Jefferson and deposited an oversized replica of a Crisco can at the base of the Joe Louis fist.
That is art in an Andy Warhol sort of way, even though most of the commuters roaring past at 7:15 a.m. did not appear to be aware that they had witnessed a real live installation, even if it was off-the-wall to the point of obscurity. And it’s also uncertain if other passersby will get the humor and irony behind the can, whose top bore a striking resemblance to the wavy, white, greasy substance in a real Crisco container.
Update, 1:47 p.m.: City officials say they plan to remove the Crisco can because they see it as “abandoned property.” It was gone by 2 p.m. Continue reading “Giant Crisco Can Helps Ease the Pain in Detroit”
Culture Jamming Street Artist COMBO Stages Topless Spectacle in Paris
brooklynstreetart.com
July 18, 2013
In the face of 21st Century misogyny and a general discomfort with public nipples of the female variety, a male street artist named COMBO just staged a high profile half naked protest with wheat-paste, brushes, and breasts in Paris on July 14. Reinterpreting the painter Delacroix”s Liberty Leading the People that commemorated the July Revolution of 1830, COMBO brought the famous topless symbol of Liberty into the streets of 2013 by way of tribute to a brash new feminist movement that is appearing more often across Europe.
“By hijacking such an iconic piece of art,” says the twenty something art director cum Street Artist, “I want to denunciate the discrimination and other misogynistic behavior that women still suffer too often and to pay a tribute to the activists” fight.” The activists in this case are people like Inna Shevshenko, the Gen Y leader of Femen, a theatrical and warrior-like group of women who advocate in public displays of power and bare chests to address issues like sexism, misogyny, homophobia, religious hypocrisy, and sex trafficking. Continue reading “COMBO Street Art: Same Spectacle, New Meaning”
From Hermann Josef Hack:
Just back from Paris and Cologne, where the BREAD ARMY conquered the streets with bread tanks in a peaceful invasion. The tanks were airdropped by parachutes made of tents. Passers-by were surprised getting confronted with them in the shopping malls and tourist hot spots. The BREAD ARMY critizises the waste of food by the wealthy nations, also water trading and the monopoly of food management causing millions of lives in the poor regions of our planet.
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From artist Norm Magnusson: I’m raising funds on Kickstarter for a project to install one of my ‘historical’ markers in each of the 27 travel plazas of the New York State Thruway. I’d love you to join me in this project. The Kickstarter campaign runs through March 20, 2013.
These are sculptures of cast aluminum and acrylic paint. They look just like the historical markers found on country roads, in front of stone houses, or near scenic overlooks all over America, but instead of commemorating the site of a battle or a place where a famous person slept, these markers deal with contemporary social issues such as gender wage disparity, global warming, illegal immigration, taxes, health care and many, many others.
The markers are expensive to make. The cost of materials keeps going up. Fabrication, installation, transportation, assistants, insurance, van rental, rewards and fulfillment… it all adds up and all of a sudden, it’s a pricey project. 7 people at $10,000 each or 7000 people at $10 each or some combination thereof will get me going. But I don’t just need money, I’m also going to need help installing these things, so if you’re interested in digging holes and planting poles, please let me know.