• Home
  • About
    • Artopia
    • John Perreault
    • Contact
    • Archives
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Artopia

John Perreault's art diary

PUBLIC ART COVER-UP! MOCK ART TREND?

October 11, 2011 by John Perreault

ARTOPIAnews

 

LENIN DESECRATED IN BULGARIA. AND IN NYC GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE ASTOR PLACE CUBE. WHO’S TO BLAME?

Is the public so disgusted by outdoor sculpture that even temporary defacement is cheered? Who’s to blame? Soon not even works by Calder or Oldenburg will be safe from mockery.
 Olek, the Polish-born crochet artist, made a cheerful one-day coverlet for Tony Rosenthal’s Alamo, that point-balanced black cube at Astor Place that each new generation of Cooper Union art students discovers can be rotated with a little bit of muscle. The cube itself is fussy. The rotation adds a populist note to Astor Place. But not as populist as Olek’s temporary improvement. LINK

 

In Sofia, Bulgaria, citizens awakened to see a Soviet-era monument transformed by paint into a paean to comic book heroes. The base of this ugly piece of work was scrawled with the phrase “in step with the times.” Was the artist provocateur making fun of Socialist Realism or of Western Pop Culture? Or indicating the superficiality, the mythological basis, and thus the equivalency of both? LINK

 

 

For “Art in Odd places,” a 10 -day art extravaganza (Oct.1 -10) along 14th Street in NYC, Leon Reid IV somehow gained permission to equip a bronze statue of George Washington with a subway map and shopping bags for one day, re-Christening the Union Square statue Tourist-in-Chief. Previously this statue has been invisible, so I am not sure this was a service to the public or not. LINK. Story lead: ArtNet.com

 

 

 

 

______________________________________________________________________

For easy access to 200 previous Artopia essays by topics, go to top bar, click on ABOUT, click on ARCHIVE, then scroll down to listing by Headlines.

NEVER MISS AN ARTOPIA ESSAY AGAIN! FOR AN AUTOMATIC ARTOPIA ALERT contact perreault@aol.com

John Perreault is on Facebook. You can also follow John Perreault on Twitter: johnperreault

For Art Cops cartoons and other videos on Youtube: John Perreault Channel. Main John Perreault  website.  John Perreault’s art.

 

Filed Under: main Tagged With: Astpr Place Cube, Leon Reid IV, Otek, Public Art, Public Sculpture, Tony Rosenthal

John Perreault

I have written about art for a number of years, specializing in first-person art criticism as art critic for the Village Voice, then in the Soho News. I have championed... Read More…

Artopia

ARTOPIA is an art diary featuring my evaluations of the art I see in galleries, museums, public spaces, and sometimes in artists' studios. I specialize in new art or art that needs to be looked at in a fresh way, in terms of contemporary practice. … [Read More...]

Things Perreault

  • John's Art

Past Artopias

browse archives

Me Elsewhere

Recommended

Examples of John Perreault's art and his biography: johnperreault.info John Perreault is on Facebook and Twitter. … [Read More...]

John Perreault interviewed on WPS1

Now available as a podcast. Click here: PODCAST. … [Read More...]

Tags

A.I.R. Gallery Allan Kaprow Andy Warhol Art Informel Artopia Barnett Newman Bruce High Quality Foundation Chris Burden Clement Greenberg Conceptual Art David Burliuk Fluxus Frank O'Hara George Brecht George Maciunas Greatest Homosexual Hannah Weiner Infantilismo Japanese Futurism Jeff Koons Jenny Holtzer John Perreault Joseph Beuys LaMonte Young Larry Rivers Les Levine Linda Montano Lygia Clark Marcel Duchamp Marina Abramovic Maurizio Cattelan MoMA New Museum Performances Pop Art Rirkrit Tiravamija Robert Barry Russian Futurism Russian Revolution Street Works Tehching Hsieh Vance Kirkland Vito Acconci Yoko Ono Yves Klein
Return to top of page
An ArtsJournal blog
This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in