Yazmany Arboleda, the Assassination artist shut down by the Secret Service this morning, apparently has quite a history as an art world prankster. Does that mean that his whole idea of setting up a controversial art exhibit across the street from the NYT building was just a prank? Well, even if he was serious about the exhibit, it's still basically a publicity-seeking prank on the media. The aesthetic philosophers amongst you can debate the implications of his motivation. [Unbeige]

So the Secret Service shut down an art exhibit titled "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama" in New York today. They are, after all, responsible for looking into threats, real or perceived, against America's President. Or its presidential nominees, we guess. What other political art has fallen afoul of the law and gained visits from the men in black? Turns out they have quite the history of art harassment, from dudes who put things on their lawns to 15-year-old boys.

The NYPD and the Secret Service shut down an art exhibition across the street from the New York Times building earlier this morning. The show's title was "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama." This is today's "Thing most assured of getting in the tabloids tomorrow." The artist, Yazmany Arboleda, says his project is really about the media—he's definitely good at getting media attention, at least. He's even set up a website for each candidate's assassination (uh, in the media). Photos of his illegal work after the jump:

The Times has details on weather-manipulating Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson's soon-to-debut public art project, "New York City Waterfalls." On June 26th, the city will flip the switch on his four 90-to-120-foot-tall freestanding waterfalls parked at different points in the East River. Sounds magical, doesn't it? Actually, it might be a whole lot more breathtaking than anybody bargained for: This is the East River we're talking about, a body of water that makes most people gag when they merely catch a whiff of it. There's likely to be a whole lot more than water raining down (raw sewage, needles, severed limbs), but what a sight it will be for tourists on the Circle Line!

"Italian artist Maurizio Savini creates amazing sculptures from regular pink chewing gum. The synthetic fleshliness of the pink color, the obsessive square shape of the product unwrapped and ready to be shred to pieces by the power of the tongue, all compete in crashing on the senses." More of his sense-crashing work after the jump.

Is this really conceptual artist Jenny Holzer's Twitter? She's famous for projecting her aphorisms like " A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS ARE CRACKPOTS" onto every available surface. Add to the list of people worth following on Twitter, plz! [via Young Manhattanite] The most awesome Twitter feed ever after the jump.

Adam Cvijanovic gained notice for his massive landscapes, painted onto something like wallpaper and pasted onto gallery walls. His latest solo exhibition is equally ambitious and obsessive, inspired by D.W. Griffith's epic flop set in ancient Babylon, Intolerance. The show-at the Bellwether Gallery in Manhattan's Chelsea-opens tonight.

Rich ladies and the gallery staff who tend to them: Know of a particularly dreamy "art handler?" You know, a guy you might call if you want something particularly well hung? Or perhaps you're just looking for a brawny type who knows how to properly mount something of yours. In either case, the DreamHandlers Art Handlers of the Year calendar should be of interest to you, either because you'll be nominating someone or buying up the debut release. It will feature 12 steamy art wranglers, one for each month, and nothing says they have to be all men, although Art Fag City notes "a product like this has been on the lips of woman and gay professionals for what seems like an eternity." Here are the rules

A tagger in LA named Buket got arrested and charged with inflicting $150,000 worth of property damage with spraypaint. The same could be said for a lot of graf writers, so why is this kid on the front page of the LA Times' website? Because he got famous by posting videos of his most daring bombing expeditions on YouTube! Two of them (including one with almost 170,000 hits) are after the jump. I have to give him props for being brave enough to edge out on that freeway overpass. But then I take away those props because, you know, he got himself arrested by putting his crimes on YouTube.

"San-Zhr Pod Village, by photographer Craig Ferguson, is a project that features images of an abandoned hotel/housing pod development in the small town of San-zhr on the north coast of Taiwan." Have a look!

"The Telectroscope is a 21st Century realisation of a 19th Century design. A tunnel bored beneath the Atlantic connects London with New York and by the aid of a complex series of lenses and mirrors allows people at one end to see and be seen by those at the other." Of course this steampunk art installation is really two video screens at either end. The New York end is at Fulton Ferry Landing. [Telectroscope; photo by Charlotte Gilhooly]

Installation artist Drew Burrows has projected a girl sleeping onto an empty bed. Visitors can then lay on the bed—and have the feeling of not being alone. [via Gizmodo]

The mystery NYC subway poster artist whose works have instilled in us a new respect for cut-and-paste vandalism has a Flickr account! And it's chock-full of impressive works that have heretofore been seen only by those commuters lucky enough to happen upon them. But now we're bringing you five of the best new ad art remixes from his collection. Help "Fight marc ecko with one hand," after the jump:

Everyone was surprised when Lucian Freud's 1995 painting, "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping," fetched $33 million at a Christie's auction—way more than was predicted. The anonymous buyer, who also bought a Francis Bacon work at Sotheby's for $90 mil, turns out to be Roman Abramovich, the dubious Russian billionaire who is one of prime minister Vladimir Putin's closest pals. WTF did he get the cash? "In 1995 Abramovich, one of Putin's closest allies, paid a mere $100 million for [state oil company] Sifnet; ten years later, the government shelled out $13.7 billion for it - an astronomical sum and far above the going market rate," reports the Daily Mail. Putin had promised to share the proceeds of oil wealth with Russia's poor. He's sharing, all right—with rich billionaires and our art market—which surely needs the millions more than Russia's failing health and education system.

I like looking at weird-ass stuff. It's fun! So here is a collection of food art. After the jump, egg babies, a watermelon in some sort of terrible trouble, a really creepy Mr. Potato Head, and an orange assisting in its own doom.

The artist BLU drew this gigantic animation on city walls and is now getting the attention he deserves with over half a million views on YouTube and Vimeo. See it below and restore your faith in the humanity's creative power.

Takashi Murakami, the artist known in part for his work on Louis Vuitton handbags, just saw his sculpture of a nude anime-looking dude ejaculating (left) sell for $15 million at auction. As we reported previously, it had only been expected to fetch up to $4 million. The winning bid was submitted to Sotheby's by telephone, probably because no one likes to buy this sort of thing in person, even if it's at a classy art auction. Especially if it's at a classy art auction. Click the pic for a larger image. [Times]

At Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale last night, "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" (1995) by Lucian Freud (Sigmund's grandson), went for $33 million. It beat the record auction price for a living artist—the last record was set by Jeff Koons' "Hanging Heart" sculpture, sold for $23 mil at Sotheby's last November. (P.S.: Fat- and appearance-mockers will be executed!) [WSJ]

Artist Robert Rauschenberg, the man who saved us from abstract expressionism, died Monday at the age of 82. The Times describes him as a "brash, garrulous, hard-drinking, open-faced Southerner." People used to care way more about art when it was made by people like that instead of twee New School students. Rauschenberg started out making art out of junk he found on the streets of lower Manhattan, announcing that if you didn't find "soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles" beautiful than you must be a miserable bastard. So go to the Moma this week and see First Landing Jump, which is made of "a rusted license plate, an enamel light reflector, a tire impaled by a street barrier, a man's shirt, a blue lightbulb in a can, and a black tarpaulin." And some paint and canvas, sure. [NYT]

British stencil artist Nick Walker—whose name was recently floated by a leading website as a plausible answer to the question "Who is anonymous international superstar street artist Banksy, really?"—has been a busy man. Not only was he spotted painting a piece on the side of Thunder Jacksons in the West Village—which sparked all this Banksy speculation in the first place—he also did quite a nice giraffe-themed work on the side of Roebling Tea Room in Williamsburg. We're still trying to pin down the true nature of the Banksy-Walker connection, so if you happen to have spotted Walker at work, email us. After the jump, two larger pictures [via Williamsburg is Dead] of the towering ruminant.