watch out for that giant turd

Complex Shit by Paul McCarthy from ArtInfo

Alright, for my after vacation come-back to Pinball...too good of a story to pass on. The UK's Telegraph reported yesterday an incredible story. Here's the headline:

GIANT INFLATABLE TURD ESCAPES MOORING AND BRINGS DOWN ELECTRICITY LINE

Now even Hollywood can't make that "shit" up. (sorry too good to pass on that one) The Zentrum Paul Klee in Berne, Switzerland was hosting a modern art exhibition entitled "East of Eden. A Garden Show" and this inflatable sculpture of a pile of dog turds the size of a small house was a part of the exhibit. The sculpture by American artist Paul McCarthy was supposed to have a built in fail safe that would deflate should the turds come loose, but it malfunctioned and floated 200 yards away to a children's home on July 31st.

The hardest thing about all this is trying to figure out what part is best. The turd sculpture, the fact some engineer had to design a deflation safety device (can you imagine a client coming in asking for that..."Um yeah, we'd like you to design a deflation device for a balloon." "How large of a Balloon." "One the size of a house, oh and shaped like a turd."), or that apparently today we would consider an inflatable turd "high art."Ah, I almost forgot. The name of the piece is "Complex Shit" (2008). Totally Classic!

As for the sculpture itself this isn't an unexpected piece from McCarthy. He himself has said "My work is more about being a clown than a shaman." (Magnus Petersen) Critics have also gone so far as suggesting his work seeks to undermine the idea of "the myth of artistic greatness." (Paul McCarthy: Rites of Masculinity) Either way you have to give it up for someone out there who still has their sense of humor intact because personally I think it would be awesome to walk through a beautiful sculpture park full of serious pieces watching people pretend to know something about art and then turn a corner and find a giant pile of inflatable dog poop. To see such a common nuisance elevated to such a ridiculous scale would be hysterical. The fact that it took flight is just the cherry on the sundae.

The museum's official description of the intent for exhibit is as follows,

"20 Hectares of playground for the garden show: the farmland to the rear of the three steel hills and the entire tract of greenery from the Wyssloch Valley down to Lake Egelsee will be sprouting weird and wonderful objects to form and animated kind of front garden.

Paul McCarthy will be subverting the otherwise harmonious landscape sculpture of the Zentrum Paul Klee with his installation Complex Shit - a giant pile of dog feces."

To read the full article - Telegraph Uk

Zentrum Paul Klee Bern

update re: biggest drawing in the world

I felt it best to add a retraction regarding my largest drawing in the world entry. Apparently it was a fictional project. Would have been nice if they had been upfront about it, but none the less it has, yet to be realized.

There is a similar project called "the world is my canvas," which is lead by position artist Stavros. He calls it "the greatest work of art ever" and if nothing else the video on his site is quite entertaining. So check out: http://www.theworldismycanvas.com/ to get your super large work of art fix. In the meantime enjoy his footsteps across Rome below.

poptart

I'm not someone who watches/ enjoys American Idol, however when I heard that their summer national tour was sponsored by POPTARTS I couldn't resist posting it. Classic.

h3 scratch off

My Subaru newsletter popped up in my gmail inbox this morning and I was for once delight to come across a really interesting story. (normally it's just accessories and gas saving advice)

Lauren Was and Adam Eckstrom a husband and wife duo who've always dreamt of owning a Hummer H3 have created their own "special edition H3" out of $35,000 worth of losing lottery tickets. The project is called "Ghost of a Dream" and represents the dream of buying an expensive car upon winning the lottery. A dream that rarely comes true.

What I love about this project is they've taken what many would seem as a negative into a positive and a one of a kind piece of art!

For specifics....the body of a car is made from a plastic mold and is lined with lottery tickets. There are coins decorating the rims to represent the principal tool used to scratch the tickets and the rest is all tickets. Here are some detail views:

wow a lot of work went into this!

check out the original article:

http://subaruowingsmills.mileone.com/E-Newsletter.aspx

nissan xterra

I recently went to a lecture about coordination between mechanical engineers and architects and the lecturer used the story of the xterra as an example of poor coordination. This was the first I had ever heard anything regarding the xterra and design flaws, so I was immediately interested. (far more so then the actual topic of the lecture to be honest)

Apparently there was some miscommunication between the design engineers and the result was that odd bump on top, which they covered with a roof rack at the last minute. Don't you love it! Just put something on top and no one will figure it out!!

Anyway they fixed everything for the 2nd Generation Xterra. BUT I keep seeing the 1st Generations driving around. They're everywhere...now that you know you'll start seeing them too. So I can't help but wonder if these poor saps who bought the 1st generation knew about the problem OR if they loved the xterra with the flaw? Or maybe no one really cares?

All I know is I'll never see an Xterra in the same way again.