A Godzilla-sized Gumby, molded MacGyver, Saved By the Bell shoot out, and even a real-life Mr. Belding were all featured in the opening of “Idiot Box,” a television-themed art exhibit at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles. The show closes on April 23rd, which happens to be the middle of TV turnoff week. If you can’t check the show out in person, surf through our favorite works in the gallery below.
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At one point, Damon Dash, co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records and Rocawear, was worth “about $50 million dollars,” but now he owes $2 million in taxes, has banks foreclosing on his two Tribeca condos, and even had his Chevy Tahoe seized because he couldn’t pay the $700 lease. But he still continues pimping a luxury lifestyle. Through his Tiret jewelry company, Dash is releasing an iced-out Range Rover with “real diamond accents,” among a host of other options that are likely beyond his means. |JustLuxe via Luxist| Read more »
Fat Tag, an iPhone app just released by Free Art and Technology, isn’t about making colorful graffiti. It’s about making tags, very drippy tags. The “simple graffiti tagging app” is free and now available to iPhone users, though the source code is open for adapting to other platforms. Click the images above for a sense of what the “accelerometer based dripping paint” is capable of. |FAT|
The lefty New York Civil Liberty Union is up to it’s old justice-promoting tricks again, this time challenging secret hearings held against “those accused of offenses within the NYC’s transit system.” And we’re not talking terrorists here, but people who have been given summonses for mostly minor offenses like “fare evasion, public intoxication, unreasonable noise and obstructing pedestrian traffic.” But unlike most courts, the New York City Transit Adjudication Bureau (TAB) is an agency that holds its own “closed-door hearings” which pretty much violates the “First Amendment, the New York State Constitution and the state’s common law,” according to the NYCLU in a recently filed lawsuit.
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Streetwear brand Bodega opened up their new canned series of t-shirts that are “rotten to the core with bad taste guaranteed,” featuring fallen sports hero OJ Simpson, who as they note, has gone “from venerated to villain twice over.” |Bodega|
During the press preview for the New Museum’s triennial exhibition, “Younger Than Jesus,” someone hung a giant banner stating “Please, New Museum, Show My Work” on the facade outside. “It was soon removed, but across the street a painting with the same plea was seen on the ground.” The perpetrator is unknown making this apparent PR stunt a flop. |Video by Loren J. Munk via Hrag Vartanian|
Anybody know if there’s a Russian word for bukkake? Babelfish was no help. Anymoo, we’re well beyond Got Milk? and white moustaches here, comrades. These are money shots from a Russian milk campaign shot by Alena Nikiforov, according to English Russia. I noticed in the comments section of other places where these splashy ads have appeared that people were wondering, “what’s with the bells on the models?” Duh, the milky-skinned maids represent cows, you fancy city slickers. And the cutesy Christmas bells are substitutes for cumbersome cow bells (the butterfly’s a nice touch). Apparently, milk is more of a luxury drink in the motherland. I know I’ll never look at spilt milk the same way again. Click the images above for the full liquid protein gallery and go here to see even more.
On Saturday, Caleb Neelon, an artist known as Sonik, the editor of Swindle and a Cambridge native, spoke at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art about why prosecuting Shepard Fairey is bad for the city, likening the effort to the early censorship of now-celebrated artists such as Walt Whitman.
People laugh at Boston for being a city of culturally clueless Puritans, and because of that, business that depends on an audience to the contrary, avoids Boston. This arrest has renewed our subscription to this unfortunate perception.
As an example of the opportunity Boston missed by digging up and dumping old charges on Fairey, Neelon pointed to Los Angeles, where Fairey executed a mural for the launch of “Stages,” a global art exhibition to raise funds and cancer awareness for the Livestrong Foundation.
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Parisian graffiti artist André and his hot pink pal Mr. IX star in this new video for Belvedere vodka. In it, he flies into New York with a silver suitcase stocked with vodka and spray paint, stopping off in Brooklyn to catch some tags. As the driver pulls away, André is too busy looking out for the vandal squad to notice his drawing Mr. IX—the embodiment of nightlife and luxury and other cool things—come to life. In fact, his aerosol alter ego might be cooler than him. Mr. IX is always one step ahead at the Bowery Hotel or hanging out with Leo Fitzgerald at Beatrice. What’s this ad trying to say? Who cares! It’s too long to watch till the end anyway, but we’re still ready to buy a case of that shit if it’s going to induce LSD-like visions of graffiti.
Now that the Port Authority smartly decided not to call it the Freedom Tower, the City Room asked its readers to help create a logo for 1 WTC with varying results, most of them unreasonable. This one from Mark Sanders is especially eerie: “The number only is visible because of the omission of its twin. While a single new building sits on the site, the shadow of twin towers provides solemn context.” |City Room|
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