Mr Supine’s free art floatie steers away from New Jersey…

NYC’s (well, Brooklyn, actually) chartreuse-loving street anonymous art phantom JUDITH SUPINE has reprised his last summer’s attack on the vaguely toxic East River by sending yet another color-screaming art floatie out to sea this weekend. No word yet as to whose hands the diving beauties ultimately ended up in, but one thing’s for sure, it’ll probably turn up in some high-end street art auction sooner than later. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Espo takes to the streets to enlist some willing waterboard soldiers…

Since Guantanamo Bay isn’t technically accepting any new prisoners, our man ESPO aka: STEVE POWERS is ready to set up a little WATERBOARDING torture experiment—in conjunction with NYC-based arts organization CREATIVE TIME—of his own and he needs you or your lawyer to sign up now. READ ON: Read the rest of this entry »

Unfortunately, no, this is not a new Butthole Surfers video…

When someone says the words “Mermaid Parade” one can’t help but imagine a street full of hot, young, half-naked women in forgivably bad costumes. Unfortunately, such was not really the case at the costumed perp walk that was last month’s 2008 CONEY ISLAND MERMAID PARADE which instead looked like the movie version of a Vice “Don’t” column. Featuring a staggering array of art-damaged revelers in various states of creative undress, the annual event once again proved to be one of the best people watching processions of all time. Technically the country’s largest art parade, the parade is actually an homage to Coney Island’s long forgotten Mardi Gras that was staged religiously from 1903 to 1954 and invites a stunning array of like-minded exhibitionists to converge on the boardwalk to display their pound(s) of painted flesh. Pour yourself a drink, smear some Vaseline on your computer screen and HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Banksy’s buffer will be working overtime tonite… 

Walking through the abandoned Eurostar terminal-turned impromptu stencil art museum that is BANKSY’s infamous “Cans Festival,” it seems that the Bristol bad boy has his share of detractors after all. Just two months after the show’s debut (it’s scheduled to remain on public display until Fall) it seems the local graffiti droogs have made their feelings regarding England’s prince of street art known in the form of ubiquitous tagging throughout the tunnel. Do we smell an old school graffiti war brewing? No chance, that would be way too “street.” The Queen will probably have her royal art conservators on the job restoring the place by week’s end. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

The Brooklyn Bridge’s biggest leak to date…

Normally, New York City residents yearning for a glimpse of a waterfall had to head upstate to Niagara. Now the trip is as close as the New York Harbor. As of this morning, four massive waterfalls created by 41-year-old Danish-Icelandic artist OLAFUR ELIASSON went into commission there, churning 35,000 gallons of East River water per minute over their manmade precipices. Following in the footsteps of conceptual art grandstander Christo who draped Central Park in yellow fabric in 2005, Eliasson sought to create an elaborate spectacle with the installation, officially titled “New York City Waterfalls,” and in the eyes of NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, it’s bound to be a cash cow: “We estimate that the project will generate more than $55 million in economic activity for our city,” he announced this morning at the falls’ dedication ceremony. At a cost of $15.5 million (the majority of funds came from private donors, the city ponied up $2 million), that’s not a bad return on investment if ol’ Bloomie is correct in his estimation that “tens of thousands” of tourists will flock to the city to get a glimpse of Eliasson’s aesthetically spare constructions (water’s always beautiful, but the mechanisms resemble little more than elaborate scaffolding).

The waterfalls are at Pier 35 in Manhattan, near South and Rutgers Streets north of the Manhattan Bridge; at the Brooklyn tower of the Brooklyn Bridge; Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn, west of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade; and on the north shore of Governors Island. They will be turned on every day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., except on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when they will be activated at 9 a.m. After sunset, the waterfalls will be lighted by light-emitting diodes. To facilitate viewing, a temporary park has been specially created on Pier 1 (the site of the future Brooklyn Bridge Park). In a nod to current gas prices, the city’s Department of Transportation, in collaboration with the Public Art Fund, has also created a bike route around the project.

For the definitive story, check out the NYTimes, or NY Mag…

The man in the water…

Karl Lagerfeld’s spaceship has finally landed, and P-Funk is the house band…

As big companies struggle to find new ways to connect the dots between their brands and the art world, OG fashion giant CHANEL has boldly gone where few have been able to afford to go before and created their own incredible traveling UFO-like art museum dubbed the “CHANEL CONTEMPORARY ART CONTAINER” which has just touched down in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park near the hipster hub of the Harajuku subway station. And what does this incredible land-based flying object house, you might ask? Why an obligatory self-congratulating collection of original art pieces by 20 international artists including (among others) YOKO ONO, THE BLUE NOSES, DAVID LEVENTHAL, DANIEL BUREN, LEE BUL, NOBUYOSHI ARAKI, PIERRE et GILLES, and STEPHEN SHORE, of course, all paying homage to the couture house’s signature product, the Chanel quilted purse. While we can think of fewer items less inspiring to build a traveling art exhibition around, we’re more than impressed by architectural futurist ZAHA HADID’s incredible modular spaceship-like structure that was commissioned by the company’s chief creative director and resident Earthbound alien, KARL LAGERFELD. With stops scheduled in New York, London, Moscow, and Paris through 2010, there’s a good chance a great deal of well-heeled aficionados will get their chance to prowl the pod’s Kubrick-ian white corridors and possibly even be granted an audience with the mobile museum’s resident MC, Hal. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Artist Benjamin Verdonck at home in his new skybox…

Belgian artist BENJAMIN VERDONCK has taken the usually verboten medium of performance art to new heights of greatness with his new NEST installation titled “The Great Swallow” in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Perched 50 meters above the city square on the side of the 13th floor of the Wenna Tower (aka: “The Pepperbox”), Verdonck’s windy new home is, according the artist, constructed of “the crowns of 23 silver birches, two straw bales, one bucket of spit, three bags of sand, twelve buckets of glue, and nineteen cans of polyurethane foam.” Residing in the perch since its construction a week ago, the artist has seen a lot of debris float down to his numerous fans at street level including feathers, a giant egg, and copious amounts of bird shit. No word yet on how long the installation will remain or what the artist’s final stunt will be, but we’re guessing it could quite easily include a caravan of ambulances. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »