This hilariously weird object is the latest random thing investigated by Portland's overzealous bomb squad. (The last was a tennis ball, which they detonated.) If you're wondering what it is, it's "a makeshift diorama containing a packet of tomato seeds, a flannel shirt and a computer mouse" that was spotted just sitting around on the street. Duh.
Back in 1977, Brooklyn-based artist Tom Otterness made a film of himself shooting and killing a dog he'd adopted from an animal shelter. It's art! But it's also evidence of an act of animal cruelty, which is why some San Francisco residents don't want Otterness to receive $750,000 in public funds to make statues for a local subway station.
Famous pancake artist Dan Lacey has rendered this realistic work in which President Barack Obama cures his depression by having sparkly thoughts of naked Scarlett Johansson photos. In the bottom-left corner is Bo the Dog, wearing a lei (but not his right eye???!!) in honor of the Hawaiian continent. Currently on sale at eBay. Would look great in your bathroom, or your tent.
Jay Shells is the New York guerrilla artist famous for his unofficial subway etiquette posters. For his latest project, he's put up urban etiquette signs across the city. Got himself an interview on Fox News today! You'll want to watch all the way through to the end of this clip, when he tells the Foxbot about his aborted plans for a "Fox News Lies" sign. She is miffed! Jay, how could you??
If your weary and weepy eyes need a brief respite from all the 9/11 picture retrospectives and falling-tower video replays, check out these sculptures that Sotheby's just installed in the backyard ("the gardens") of Chatsworth House—the stately abode of Britain's Duke of Devonshire. That's the duke in the picture, along with his wife and their new pet monster, Brad.
Not all of the vehicles present at last week's Burning Man Art Conference and Business Workshop were RV campers inhabited by radical CEOs. Some of the things-on-wheels that people drove around the desert were actually quite artistic and inspired! This fire-shooting steampunk octopus, complete with moving arms and eyes that pop out, is one such example. Needs a few additional safety features, but it's still probably safer than a Pinto.
There's a bit of an art world brouhaha unfolding right now, and, not surprisingly, Banksy is at its center. The controversy surrounds works created at the tail end of 2007, during a project called Bethlehem Santa's Ghetto in which the famed, anonymous graffiti artist left his mark upon several public surfaces in the West Bank.
If there's one thing you do not mess with, in Russia, it's Vladimir Putin's image as an International Man of Sexiness. But that's what a group of anarchists in Siberia did by adding a picture of a sickly Putin, as well as President Dmitry Medvedev and several other politicians, to an ad about gonorrhea and other STDs that asks, "Do you need such companions?" This happened back in February but is still being investigated, which probably isn't a good sign for the alleged anarchists. Police arrested three men and conducted raids, where they found "extremist literature" and other anarchy-causing tools. If convicted, they could face seven years in a gulag for "hooliganism." If there is a bright side, at least they're already in Siberia.
Renowned Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat was found severely beaten early this morning on the Damascus Airport road, apparently by plain clothes government thugs, or shabiha. A picture from the hospital today shows both of his hands appearing to be severely injured. Long critical of the Assad family, Ferzat was nonetheless tolerated and, as the Guardian notes, even respected by Bashar al-Assad at one point. Ferzat told the paper in 2001 about an encounter he had with Bashar the aspiring opthamologist:
Artist Todd White is famous for designing characters who live in a pineapple under the sea. But did he also design an elaborate kidnap and art theft caper in Huntington Beach? Gallerist Margaret Howell has filed a $7.5 million lawsuit accusing "agents of Mr. White" of imprisoning and assaulting her for several hours, stealing $1 million in artwork, forcing her into "reciting a rehearsed and scripted 'consent' into a voice recorder," and then defaming her to associates.
"You can't keep a good creative down," as the old saying goes. When pushed out of their community by covert gentrification, overt invasion, and other insidiousnesses, good creatives will simply move elsewhere and establish new, even more authentic communities. This is how the Land of NoBro came to pass.
Wall Street was full of naked people this morning. Not in a metaphorical sense! A tipster sent us this video of a man doing some vigorous dick-swinging exercises outside of 75 Wall Street this morning. And that's not all:
Last month, performance artist IEPE and an anonymous crew stopped traffic in Berlin's Rosenthaler Platz intersection and dumped 2,000 gallons of water-based, environmentally friendly paint onto the pavement. The intersection was then reopened. What happened? Find out in the video above. [via Architizer]
