Less “Thought Provoking” Than Just “Provoking”

People need to learn that art that resembles improvised explosives is never cool, and not only because of recent events:

Barely 24 hours after the Times Square terror scare, firefighters used a crowbar to break into a Flatiron District storefront after a passerby reported what looked like bombs set to explode.

But the Sunday evening fuss was over an art display that included a fog machine, a fake time bomb, and some vials of stinky perfume in containers that looked like little pipe bombs.

The NYPD bomb squad was called in to make sure the display at 1133 Broadway was safe, and firefighters turned off the fog machine to make sure no more passersby would think the artwork was about to explode.

The New “Hyperlocal” News!

Suffice it to say, there are two reporters listed on this followup. What, there wasn’t another Gorilla Coffee angle to cover yesterday?

[Concur.]

But in this post-modern world, what if the story is actually something more clever than anyone realizes, even going beyond the mildly intriguing yet commonplace “story behind the story” speculation about crass viral marketing? What if, in the context of the Wall Street Journal’s recent moves into the New York media market, it’s actually an elaborate “rope-a-dope” scheme to make us all think that the Times is resting on its laurels when actually the metro reporters are busy preparing an explosive Bloomberg cheating scandal expose? Or some such. Or perhaps I’m overthinking this and just want Sewell Chan back on his old beat . . .

Just A Thought . . .

How can we be so sure that they’re not really a type of Stephen Colbert-style performance art group?

And You Wonder Why They Hate Our Freedom

Case in point:

While in Times Square launch a public service drive called “I Participate,” the mayor told MTV that he’s betting on Lady Gaga to take home the most trophies at the upcoming Video Music Awards.

I hate my body.

If It’s Not Masturbating Cowboys, It’s Extremely Close Up Vulvas

You can’t win with these people:

It’s O.K. if P.S. 1 wants to show vulvas in extreme close-up. (I don’t believe in censorship.) What’s not O.K. is that the only warning to parents was a tiny sign at the entrance to the gallery. The wording was clear — “These galleries contain graphic imagery. Parent/adult discretion is advised” — but the size and style of the sign made it unlikely that any harried parent would even notice it.

P.S. 1 is hardly the only local museum that has let me down. A Takashi Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum in 2008 was a major draw for parents and kids. The first piece on display, a teaser in the museum’s lobby, was a playful sculpture of cartoonlike characters, which made my sons want to see more.

So it came as a shock when, entering the main exhibition space, we were greeted by a masturbating cowboy spinning a lasso of his semen.