A bright pink "Balloon Flower" sculpture by Jeff Koons went for $25.8 million at Christie's London yesterday, exceeding his last sale of $23.6 million. Which means he can just about afford his outstanding child support payments! [Reuters]

"The waterfalls are an astounding feat of engineering, municipal coordination and fund-raising (given their $15 million price tag). But they are also actually relatively unobtrusive and brilliantly insidious." [Times]

Olafur Eliasson's public arts project, man-made waterfalls under the Brooklyn Bridge, has commenced. Click for the video!

Olafur Eliasson's "Waterfalls" art project debuted under cloudy skies this morning under the Brooklyn Bridge. Talk about flooding the zone: Should you need up to the minute info on the spectacle, note that Gothamist will be providing live coverage of the event all day, willl blog live from the press boat tour this afternoon, and return this evening with night photos. Oh, and they've got tons of video, too. [Gothamist]

"The nude portrait was a gift from Iceland's first lady, who tells Bloomberg News she has 'yet to meet someone who does not want a naked picture of their loved ones with text about themselves.'" [Gothamist via Fleshbot]

The statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pictured on the left was a little, well, "confrontational" and communist looking (??) for the U.S. Commission On Fine Arts, which approves monuments on the National Mall in Washington DC. So the Chinese sculptor who carved the 28-foot memorial gave the civil rights leader a face lift, softening his brow and turning up his lips "to resemble the hint of a smile," in the words of AP. Now tourists will be spared the apparently undesirable site of an angry-looking black men, and the commissioners indicated yesterday they are happy. The foundation responsible for making the statue refused to release a before/after picture, but Rick McKay of Cox managed to snap the above photo, which ran in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. [AP]

The new issue of W is a fine example of a shameless girl-on-girl magazine cover: to this day, one of the surest ways to guarantee sales on the news stand, regardless how vapid the interior editorial content may be. Whether you loathe it (exploitation!) or love it (exploitation is hot!), it's a design trope almost as common as the between-the-legs A-frame photo. Below, five more famous examples from the recent past. The only way to fight the enemy is to know the enemy.

Street art, culture jamming, anti-corporate activism, celebrity loathing, celebrity worship-it's all mixed up into a vast cultural stew these days, making the individual messages of many artists hard to parse. When in doubt just assume the message is, "I'm trying to get famous." British artist James Cauty has taken a pop art style, combined it with an advertising-remix motif, and sprinkled in a little blatant fame whoring to cap it all off. He's just commandeering billboards with pieces about celebrities saying how much they love him, and you have to admit that really crystallizes pop culture circa 2008. Plenty of people with day jobs in advertising dream about having the balls to do this (illegally). Pictured, Cauty's image and billboard theft starring Kate Moss; below, another one with celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.

Remember Dash Snow, downtown it-boy artist who worked in the "Jizzing all over on NY Post headlines" motif? Yes well, he's been keeping busy making these: $62 limited edition t-shirts reading "LEFT ALL WASHED UP." Exactly as you would have guessed. [WeSoldOut via Animal]

Yes, theatre still exists. And, more importantly, there are still theatre awards shows. Last night's Tony Awards, celebrating the best of Broadway, offered few surprises, but did bestow top honors upon two relative newcomers to the New York theatre scene. Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights, a musical love letter to upper Manhattan, won for best score and best musical, heralding the arrival of a distinct new voice, and reassuring the old white people clapping in the audience that they're not fusty and scared of the ethnics. August: Osage County, a brilliant and brutal three and a half hour epic of a play, won lots of awards, including best play for Tracy Letts and best actress for Chicago theatre grand dame Deanna Dunagan.

"'Crying Men' is a collection of photographic portraits of famous film actors by Sam Taylor-Wood showing what it looks like when Hollywwod men cry. Taylor-Wood explains, 'Some of the men cried before I even finished loading the camera, but others found it really difficult. People can decide for themselves which they think are the authentic tears and which they think are fake. It's about the idea of taking these big, masculine men and showing a different side.'" More after the jump.

I just came across this and thought it was awesome. That is all. UPDATE: I can't seem to make the pic any bigger so just click the link to view full-size. Also? I'm pretty sure they forgot to include Lucy Liu's head. [DesignYouTrust]

The anonymous American Apparel ad prankster strikes again. This time with more animals! Also—it must be said—with even more poon-tang than usual. Copyranter says the new installment is a spoof of this bambi-themed ad. If Dov Charney doesn't find this vandal and put him or her on the payroll immediately, he's even crazier than we think. Click through for two uncensored photos of the (explicit, artistic) latest work:

NEA chairman Dana Gioia: "You can now live in Santa Fe and e-mail your New York agent every day." [AP, Times]

Will these waggish fragrance marketing types ever stop with their cheeky penis humor? Eleven-year-old cologne wearers sure hope not! San Francisco—a popular home to gays—is all atwitter because of a new campaign by the giant ad agency Ogilvy for Tom of Finland, a new scent inspired by the famous homoerotic artist of the same name. They took posters of Tom's drawings, see, and positioned them just so next to protruding objects—that to a dirty mind might resemble a huge, hard cock! Such sophisticated appeal to the target demographic. The gays like that stuff, right? So they'll surely open their wallets for this:

And you thought your stylist was talented? A mere dilettante when compared to the 'do-master (or mistress) behind these fabulous works of hair artistry.

"'Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840-1940,' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, manages to operate in the gap between both kinds of miracles, innovative and talismanic. It presents the history of a medium as well as history itself. This exhibition appropriates a model usually reserved for painters, old or modern masters. Organized by Malcolm Daniels, the curator in charge of the Met's photography department, "Framing a Century" recounts the medium's 100 years with a succinct cavalcade of big names, substantial bodies of work and significant historical impact."

Yazmany Arboleda, the masterful young media manipulator and artist of debatable talent, still has the national press talking two days after the Secret Service shut down his "art exhibit" about the Assassination of Barack and Hillary. But that's okay, because now the kid is digging his own grave with grand pronouncements. Hoax, you say? No, this whole stunt is probably just over your head:

Call it what you will—street art, culture jamming, or protest. I'll call it some guy who's been going around London and graphically hacking the heads off of models in all types of ads. With fantastic attention to detail. Pictured: Carrie Bradshaw, improved. You know all the cool kid brands are just dying of impatience waiting for him to hack up one of their ads. Lovely. Two more pics of the mystery chopper's graphic, allegorical work, after the jump.

As predicted, Yazmany Arboleda—the publicity-seeking artist hastily shut down by the Secret Service yesterday for his exhibit about the "Assassination" of Barack and Hillary—made a clean sweep of the New York media. He is truly a master of his craft. The stories run the gamut, from the Post's throwaway one-off to the Sun's cautious warning that this whole art project might be a big hoax. And let's hope it is; it would be worthwhile comeuppance for the equally publicity-seeking New York Police Commissioner, who really should have had better things to be concerned about yesterday: