The Plastic Bag Store

As of March 1 in NY, plastic bags are banned in all stores. Part art installation and part political commentary, TImes Square is hosting the Plastic Bag Store running from March 18-April 12, 2020 at 20 Times Square at 47th and 7th Avenue. There are even performances twice a day. Open Tuesday through Sunday from 11a to 6p.

Times Square Arts is proud to present The Plastic Bag Store, a public art installation and immersive theater piece by artist and director Robin Frohardt employing humor, craft, and a critical lens to our culture of consumption and convenience — specifically, the enduring effects of our single-use plastics.

Free and open to the public, The Plastic Bag Store will occupy 20 Times Square, where shelves will be stocked with thousands of original, hand-sculpted items — produce and meat, dry goods and toiletries, cakes and sushi rolls —  all made from discarded, single-use plastics in an endless flux of packaging. At night, the store transforms into an immersive, dynamic set for free performances where hidden worlds and inventive puppetry tell the darkly comedic, sometimes tender story of how the overabundance of plastic waste we leave behind might be misinterpreted by future generations.

Amazing Hairdos at MOMA's PS1

The event is inspired by the Hair Wars showcase, which began in Detroit’s nightclubs in the mid-1980s.

One model once had her hair braided into a birdcage, while another had a “hairy-copter” — a helicopter hairdo, with blades and all. These are some of the Thisis a dazzling display of what some may call works of art.

This weekend, MoMA PS1 is putting on a Hair Wars-inspired performance for its Sunday Sessions program of live art. The event will begin at 6:05pm (the usual start time for Hair Wars parades) and includes a series of “fantasy hair pieces created by an intergenerational group of artists and hair entertainers.” Hair Wars founder David “Hump the Grinder” Humphries helped select exhibitors, including Keith Matthews, who once molded a wig into the shape of a purple turntable. Luckily, for those of us who have missed past showcases, archival videos spanning from 1985 to the present will be screening throughout the day at the museum.

When: Sunday, March 18, 6:05–8:00pm Where: MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens) More info at MoMA PS1.

The Best of Weird Florida

Just got back from Florida and look what I missed! Atlas Obscura lists all of the weird Florida sites. Gotta go back!

America's strange has sunk to the bottom and settled in these Floridian places.

Cities like Portland, Oakland, Austin and scores of other places urge their constituents to “keep the city weird.” In Florida there’s no need.  

Want to see a haunted doll on display? Florida. Vacation with the Amish? Florida. See a “city of live mermaids?” Florida, of course. Absurd crime, cryptids, theme parks, and a healthy dose of campy kitsch maintain the state’s title as the weirdest in the Union. 
 
Know of something unusual we’re missing in Florida? Add it to the Atlas!

 

1

Weeki Wachee, Florida

Weeki Wachee: City of Live Mermaids

Welcome to old Florida, where a 1940s mermaid show is still enchanting visitors.

 

 

2

Kissimmee, Florida

Manor Professional Wrestling Dinner Theater

Would you like a sleeper hold with that?

 

 

3

Ochopee, Florida

Skunk Ape Research Headquarters

In the depths of the Florida Everglades, one man has dedicated his life to studying the elusive Skunk Ape.

 

 

4

Sarasota, Florida

Pinecraft

This Florida resort community is where the Amish come to have fun in the sun.

 

 

5

Opa-locka, Florida

Opa-locka City Hall

America's only city hall with minarets took architectural cues from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

 

 

6

Big Pine Key, Florida

Underwater Music Festival

For deep-sea divers and music lovers, the Florida Keys' Underwater Music Festival provides the best of both worlds.

 

 

7

Captiva, Florida

The Bubble Room

This kitsch eatery is chock-a-block with bric-a-brac.

 

 

8

Gibsonton, Florida

Gibsonton, Florida

The snowbirds here are circus sideshow performers.

 

 

9

Key West, Florida

Key West High Heel Shoe Drop

Leave it to Key West to drop a real-live drag queen instead of a ball to mark the arrival of the New Year.

 

 

10

Tampa, Florida

Two-Headed Gator of Seminole Heights

"Bite or Smite" became the unlikely mascot of a Tampa suburb.

 

 

11

Clearwater, Florida

Clearwater Virgin Mary

This glass-stain Mary attracted thousands of pilgrims until her head was shattered by a vandal with a slingshot.

 

 

12

Gainesville, Florida

Historic Haile Homestead

Over 12,500 words are scrawled across each room of this historic plantation house and no one knows why.

 

 

13

Saint Petersburg, Florida

Salvador Dalí Museum

Florida might be at its most surreal in this museum devoted to the famed Spanish artist.

 

 

14

Orlando, Florida

The Holy Land Experience

A mega theme park-wax museum mélange containing all things biblical.

 

 

15

Marco Island, Florida

Cape Romano Dome House

An abandoned vacation home spent a decade taking on legends. It's now taking on water.

 

 

16

Lake Helen, Florida

Cassadaga

Town of spiritualists and mediums in Florida.

 

 

17

Key Biscayne, Florida

Neptune Memorial Reef

An underwater city for the dead.

 

 

18

Homestead, Florida

Ed Leedskalnin's Coral Castle

A mysterious castle built as a monument to lost love.

 

 

19

Kissimmee, Florida

Splendid China

This $100 million theme park in Florida was been completely abandoned and is now mostly rubble.

 

 

20

Lake Wales, Florida

Spook Hill

Haunted Hill Supposedly Defies Gravity.

 

 

21

Key Largo, Florida

Underwater Hotel in Key Largo

Stay in a room with a view... of the bottom of the ocean.

 

 

22

Miami Beach, Florida

World Erotic Art Museum

12,000 sq. ft. museum tracing erotic art from antiquity to modern times.

 

 

23

Miami, Florida

Miami Circle

A perfect circle of twenty-four mysterious holes dates back to prehistoric time.

 

 

24

Key West, Florida

Captain Tony's Saloon

Florida's oldest bar was once a morgue, complete with a hanging tree and gravestones.

 

 

25

Homosassa, Florida

Monkey Island of Homosassa

In Florida, these naughty monkeys live on their own mini-monkey Alcatraz.

 

 

26

Longwood, Florida

The Senator

3,500 year old tree was the second oldest in the United States, burned down by drug user who stated, "I can't believe I burned down a tree older than Jesus."

 

 

27

Estero, Florida

Koreshan State Historic Site

Former utopian colony based on the belief that the universe exists in a hollow sphere.

 

 

28

Monticello, Florida

Nautilus Foundation

The ruins of a creative scholar's fantastical unfinished sanctuary act as his massive gravestone.

 

 

29

Tallahassee, Florida

9/11 Whale Sculptures

One man's grief over national tragedy has manifested in a pod of homemade whales on his front lawn.

 

 

30

Tampa, Florida

Gravity Research Foundation Monument

A tribute to a future time when gravity is conquered.

 

 

31

Pensacola Beach, Florida

Pensacola Futuro House

Pensacola's UFO home has withstood many hurricanes—just as the experimental 1960s design intended.

 

 

32

Tampa, Florida

Parque Amigos de Jose Marti

A tiny, unassuming park in Tampa that belongs to the Republic of Cuba.

 

 

33

Port Orange, Florida

The Last Resort Bar

Where serial killer Aileen Wuornos drank her last beer.

 

 

34

Tallahassee, Florida

Airport Cemetery

The Tallahassee Airport serves over half a million passengers a year and is home to some permanent residents too.

 

 

35

St. Augustine, Florida

Wolf's Museum of Mystery

This curio museum seems like the type of place you might find a mogwai or a monkey's paw.

 

 

36

Safety Harbor, Florida

Whimzeyland

This home is decked out like a psychedelic explosion of colors and bowling balls.

 

 

37

South Bay, Florida

Gatorland

One of many gator theme parks, abandoned in the sugar fields of South Florida.

 

 

38

Tampa, Florida

Dysfunctional Grace Art Co.

An oddities shop that dabbles in the deathly and beautiful.

 

 

39

Homestead, Florida

Aerojet Dade Rocket Facility

When this test site was abandoned they didn't even bother taking their rocket with them.

 

 

40

St. Augustine, Florida

The Fountain of Youth

A tribute to Ponce de Leon's supposed quest for eternal youth.

 

 

41

Key West, Florida

Robert the Doll

This legendary "evil" doll has been haunting the citizens of Key West for over 100 years

 

 

 

Sneak A Peek in New York City

What exactly is Sneak a Peek? Well, try to remember that feeling of catching a strange indoor scene through a neighbor's window. You're not exactly spying, yet not exactly innocent; New York is a city of ambiguous voyeur guilt. Sneak a Peek plays off of this phenomenon with televisions specifically displayed in windows along Ninth Avenue and West 22nd Street. Curated by Lal Bahcecioglu, the screens each display the work of a separate artist and are meant to be happened upon by chance. Then again, a list of their locations is available right here, and there'll be an "opening" reception Thursday night in front of the Chelsea Florist on 8th Avenue and 22nd Street. Go ahead and get your creep on. Free

 

Suspended Forest - Hurry to See

There is something interesting happening in Queens.

Artist Michael Neff has created a Suspended Forest, built from the many discarded Christmas trees currently littering the sidewalks of New York. Neff has done this before, under the BQE, but this time he's got a legal space to display the arborcide in—no longer in the open air, the space is stuffed with the scent of pine and death. These were all collected in Brooklyn and installed a few days ago at the Knockdown Center in Maspeth, Queens, where they will remain for the month of January. Behold, your discarded Christmas trees and yuletide joy are now art.

 

The New York Dance Parade - May 17, 2014

The New York Dance Parade is one of the most unique and fun parades I know. It is one long dance festival that winds its way through Greenwich Village. And this year it is scheduled for May 17, 2014. Learn more at their site -  http://danceparade.org/EE/

Their mission is "To promote dance as an expressive and unifying art form by showcasing all forms of dance, educating the general public about the opportunities to experience dance, and celebrating diversity of dance in New York City by sponsoring a yearly city-wide dance parade and dance festival."

Groups can register now on the site.

 

GULF Protest at the Guggenheim Museum

Global efforts at the Guggenheim to build an outpost museum in Abu Dhabi seem to be shrouded in unehtical behavior. Protests at the NY Guggenheim location draw attention to the exploitation of workers in the building effort. Here is a video of what happened the other night:

 

 

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire - Chalk Project 2014

I am honored to participate every year in the commemorate Chalk Project.

Here is the background for this meaningful art memorial project:

The Triangle Chalk Project commemorates the women and men who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911. This horrific fire which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers - mostly young immigrant women - helped launched the unionization of the industry.

The company employed approximately 600 workers, mostly young immigrant women, some as young as twelve or thirteen and worked fourteen-hour shifts during a 60-hour to 72-hour workweek. According to Pauline Newman, a worker at the factory, the average wage was six to seven dollars a week, at a time when the average yearly income was $791. A fire started on the 8th floor of the factory building in Greenwich Village. Women and men on the 9th floor soon became trapped - the owners of the factory locked the doors so the workers could not leave early or take breaks. Fire truck ladders could not reach higher than the 4th floor of the building. There was only one way out - they jumped out the window ... to their deaths. The scene was devastating.

Every year volunteers go to the doorsteps of those who died and write a memorial to them in chalk on the sidewalk. The full Memorial Ceremony is marked every year on March 25 - the day of the fire - outside the factory building located at 23-29 Washington Place beside Washington Square Park in Manhattan. The shirtwaist factory is now called the Brown Building, and is part of the New York University campus. Read more about it on Sue Katz's NYC blog.

Here are the two I chalked this year 2014:

Lock Picking As Sport - And Street Art?

According to The New Yorker, there is a lock picking contest going on in New York City that is resulting in some amazing "installations" of lock on public infrastructure. Almost like a street art sculpture effort.

The full article is here.

Here is the gist:

Over the past decade, “locksport”—the organized recreational picking of locks by amateur enthusiasts—has become a thriving subculture. Participants are, by definition, not professional locksmiths. This puts what they do in a legal gray area that they are quick to discuss and defend. In addition to nimble fingers and long attention spans, locksport enthusiasts try to remain fluent in local burglary law.

All but simultaneously, the phenomenon of “love locks” has exploded: padlocks with names, initials, or messages of love written on them, clipped to pieces of urban infrastructure as a public sign of romantic commitment. In some cases, the locks have been expensively laser-etched; others are simply written on with Sharpie. “Carrina, will you marry me?” “Zach + Julie, Always + Forever.” They are poetic, forming quite beautiful, rose-like clusters—and they are doomed. In nearly all cases, they will be clipped by the city and disposed of, their magic and romance lost.

On a nearly cloudless Saturday afternoon in September, recreational lock pickers met halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge to help save its hundreds of love locks. The plan was to remove as many as possible before the city’s cleaning crews could clip them, store them in red, Valentine’s Day-colored nylon bags, and, eventually, reattach each lock onto a public-art sculpture, a specially made “tree” to which all future love locks will be latched. They call this “love picking.”

 

Everything Smells

Some art stinks but this art piece really has an odor!

This from Cool news: Amsterdam artists Lernert & Sander took "a tiny sample of each little scent and spinoff fragrance that was new in 2012 and that they could obtain" and "poured it into one large 1.5-liter bottle." Naturally, they named their creation Everything  perfume So, what does Everything smell like? According to Eric, "It smelled, at first whiff, of strawberries mixed with salt, along with hints of baseball mitt and hair spray. And tuberose, yes. And licorice and fresh paint. And musk and rotten peaches and honeysuckle and basil and soap." Others compared it to Chanel or Shalimar, suggesting that "many fragrances today use the most historically successful ones as reference points."

The point, says Lernert, is "why do you need 1,400 new scents a year?" Indeed, as Eric notes, "the number of fragrances introduced annually ... is increasing at a startling pace, as manufacturers seek to tempt shoppers with blends engineered for daytime or nighttime or bedtime, or summer or fall, or just to suit whatever music is playing on your iPod. Nearly four new scents are born every day." For the person who has everything, a bottle of Everything sells for about $39,000. ~ Tim Manners, editor.