Occasionally, scofflaws who don't respect the sanctity of advertising posters in the New York subway system tear off bits of some posters and stick them to others to create new and improved versions. Sometimes they're pointless; sometimes they're funny; and sometimes, as in this mixture of Darth Vader, Takashi Murakami, and a beer ad, they're pretty stunning works of art. Click through for larger pics [via And I Am Not Lying], then rush to the Lorimer L train stop to rip this down and sell it on Ebay:

Rudy Giuliani's legacy is being tagged away. Graffiti is back and more popular than ever &mdash complaints of taggings have risen 81.5% from 2006 to 2007. "It's not art - it's just scribble," said a random dude complaining to the New York Post. But even though graffiti has become more prevalent under Bloomberg's tenure, let's not forget that he has protected the rich from other eyesores like fatties and smokers. [NYP]

If you're going to be in the Hong Kong area next week, here's something for you to do: stop by the Fabrik Gallery and see the art exhibition from guerilla stencil artist Banksy. Why do I tell you this? Just to segue into this point: Banksy is good! So suck on that, all previously stated Gawker evaluations of the man and his work! Okay, we all have opinions. After the jump, a few examples of Banksy's art that you could buy at this show, if you were quite wealthy. Despite earlier protestations to the contrary, these do not suck.

Have you signed the petition against Guillermo "Habacuc" Vargas yet? He's the Costa Rican artist whose latest big exhibition featured him tying up a starving dog "without food and water under the words 'Eres Lo Que Lees' - 'You Are What You Read' - made out of dog biscuits while he played the Sandinista anthem backwards and set 175 pieces of crack cocaine alight in a massive incense burner." Some reports say the dog starved to death during the display; the gallery director says that's not true. Either way, Vargas is not a popular man with animal lovers. By now, more than a million people have signed a petition (you can sign here, if you're so inclined) urging that he not be allowed to recreate the work, and the cause continues to draw media coverage and generate new outrage. But the artist calls his opponents hypocrites. His defense, and a video of the exhibit in question (which is pretty heartbreaking), after the jump.

This attractive and artistic "POPE" print (a takeoff on Shepard Fairey's "HOPE" print for Obama) can be yours for only $99. What better way to show that you're a Catholic hipster, or, conversely, that you're a rebellious denizen of the art underworld unafraid to scoff at the pontiff, treating his image as merely one more ironic decoration for the cluttered, graffiti-scrawled walls of your tenement pad? Either way, act now, because they're only making 666 of these. Click to enlarge. [Animal NY]

The future of newspapers? It's like a trippy mural on the side of a VW bus in a bad movie about the '60s. But with a couple more buzzwords and nonsensical statements of purpose! The LA Times, stiff suffering from every single problem a daily newspaper can suffer from, even under new, Sam Zell-approved management, took 25 editors on a staff retreat this weekend "to figure out how to stop the bleeding and regroup as a newsroom for the digital future." When they came back, they had an inspiring memo from editor Russ Stanton and the graphic you see above. Click to enlarge.

25-year-old photographer David Houncheringer is from Switzerland, an idyllic nation that has one major flaw: not enough murders. Houncheringer is doing his part to correct that, through art. Which is mightier than the gun! The young man has series of photos called "Would you like to die today?" He says, "I really enjoy seeing people watching these 'hard' pictures. Most of them laugh. Others are shocked. But they watch 15 murders a day on TV so I don't care." And he adds, "If someone wants to die, don't hesitate to contact us!" So keep that in mind! He has a point, though; these could be mistaken for stills from any episode of "CSI." Three bloody samples from his series [via First Magazine], after the jump.

The nude photo of French first lady Carla Bruni in her supermodel days sold at Christie's yesterday for $91,000, which was a bit better than its estimated price of $4,000. Some connoisseurs said the photo, by a lesser-known artist, wasn't that great, but maybe they missed the naked supermodel in it. Janet Jackson's iconic Rolling Stone cover shot brought only $10,000, but her boobs were covered up in that one, so it's understandable. The nude Gisele Bundchen picture brought $193,000 (estimate: $40,000). But the highest earner of the night was Helmut Newton's "Naked and Dressed" diptych, which sold for $241,000. We bring it to you for free, after the jump—NSFW, in an artsy way.

Someone has made a strange, looping, Phillip Glass-y video from an old Full House clip. Apparently it was some kind of art project. It stars actors from all over the world who were found on Craigslist, and goes on and on and on. We're not sure why it exists, but it does. Watch it over and over again. It's mesmerizing. Video after the jump. [From AV Club]

The newsmaking Christie's auction featuring the nude photo of French first lady Carla Bruni is coming up tomorrow. But she's not the only draw! The extensive photo collection has lots of other iconic pop culture shots, including the original photo of that famous Janet Jackson Rolling Stone cover (pictured). It also includes artistic nudes of stars like Kate Moss, Lauren Hutton, and Naomi Campbell, spanning four decades. You can see the whole collection here [via UD]. After the jump, one sample: a 1999 Irving Penn portrait of supermodel and Tom Brady girlfriend Gisele Bundchen [NSFW], which can be yours for as little as $30,000:

If you've had a sudden burst of creativity lately, it's because you're brain-damaged. Scientist Anne Adams made beautiful geometric art for years thanks to frontotemporal dementia, a brain disease that eventually robbed her of her vocabulary and even simple arithmetic skills. She passed away last year; no word on whether the movie rights have been sold to Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry. [via Boing Boing]

Artist of our age Damien Hirst must have a busy schedule, what with all the shark embalming and gluing little diamonds onto skulls and bidding on white truffles. But he's determined to make sure that his art remains within reach of the common people, who wear jeans and patronize over-the-top art world events. So he teamed up with all-American brand Levis—and the Andy Warhol licensing machine—to design some jeans that anyone can buy, assuming they have $80,000 (really) to spend on psychedelic pants. After the jump, photos of Hirst's new clothing items from last weekend's opening in LA. The smart consumer will wait until these go on sale at Filene's.

As we told you before, author and McSweeney's founder Dave Eggers is curating an art show! A very important, very humorous art show. Paddy from Art Fag City went to the opening! Well, she stood in line at the opening...

Modern art is more or less indistinguishable from prostitution, but every now and then something happens to make that relationship a little less symbolic and a little more literal. Emperors Club, the high-priced call girl outfit that provided Eliot Spitzer and countless other wealthy elites with classy sex, also hooked the same wealthy clients up with classy art. According to Artnet: "As it turns out, the company that ran Emperors Club VIP, the Emperors Publishing Media Group, also runs a parallel website titled Emperors Club Contemporary Art." Millionaires and billionaires who signed up with the service would supposedly gain access to "exclusive auctions" of works by folks like Jeff Koons and Andrew Wyeth.

Being a poet might mean you die young. In fact, writing in general is not good for your lifespan, James Kaufman writes in his study of 1,987 authors from different cultures. Published in 2003, it's titled, "The Cost of the Muse: Poets Die Young." It isn't the first study to make such claims! The Education Guardian reports, "a 1975 study found that poets tended to die younger than fiction writers."

Dave Eggers, author and founder of exhaustingly clever literary mag McSweeney's, is curating an art show! It opens next Wednesday at apexart. (We'll be there with bells on; we hear there will be a Basquiat.) UnBeige says, "according Eggers, the show ended up consisting of 'usually very basic or crude' drawings that are accompanied by hand-drawn text that functions like a funny caption." Muses Eggers in the press release, "Is humor allowed in art, and in what forms? Are captions allowed in art, and why?" Captions! If that's not art, we don't know what is. Click to see this work by David Shrigley, writ large. [via UnBeige]

Philippe Starck, the totally influential French designer of interiors, furniture, and consumer objects, seems to be having an existential crisis. "Everything I designed was unnecessary," he told a German publication, adding that he will retire in two years. "In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant." [Breitbart]

The logo of a street artist in LA named Skullphone started popping up on digital billboards around the city owned by Clear Channel. Awesome! said the collective street art world. The kid has hacked into the big media monster Clear Channel's network! It's digital graffiti! It's culture jamming! It's the new media revolution! But then it came out that Skullphone had just bought time on the billboards, like every other schmoe. Is that even cool? I'm sure Michel Foucault would have something deep to say about this, but I'm not sure what it would be. Money ad street art! [Wired]

The website P2P Art has digital artwork "made for, and only available on, the peer-to-peer networks." Once the first user downloads it, the original file is deleted by the artist, and it exist only as long as other people watch it. [via Kottke]