Starr's masterpiece

“That’s disgusting,” said one woman.

“I think it’s funny,” said another.

What they’re buzzing about is an 8-foot-tall penis carving that stands tall enough to be seen in the backyard of a home.

It wasn’t erected, but instead carved out of a tree in the backyard of a home. Artistic expression? A fertility statue? The homeowner says no to both.

“Just ah kind of practical joke my friends played on me,” said homeowner Adam Starr.

The carving was once a pine tree that Starr needed cut down. He said he asked some friends to help him out, but a mix of alcohol and chainsaws created the above result.

“I came back and they left me a little surprise,” said Starr. “Yeah I came home and it was actually night and they had a light fixed on it shining.”

He planned on cutting the tree down last weekend, but said his house got broken into and forced him to back away from that plan.

The city of Tempe has told him the stump must come down by Wednesday. Starr said it will come down even before that, by this weekend.

He said he’s putting it up on eBay and plans to donate the proceeds to charity.

“If you have nerves enough, I’d like you to take a picture of it and put it on TV so everyone in the Valley can see it,” said a man across the street.

Courtesy ABC15.com: Television, United States

A cropped image of Brooke Shields in Spiritual America, the artwork by Richard Prince

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – The gallery was forced to withdraw a photograph of a 10-year-old Shields from the show after police warned that it could constitute child pornography.

However, visitors to the opening day of the Pop Life exhibition were confronted with other, far more explicit imagery, including a video installation of a female artist, Andrea Fraser, who paid a stranger $20,000 to have sexual intercourse with her on camera.

A room devoted to the artist Jeff Koons features giant canvases of hardcore sexual acts, while another room is lined with images taken from pornographic magazines. They are the work of Cosey Fanni Tutti, a one-time porn actress formerly known as Christine Newby.

The installations carried an over-18s warning but gallery staff made no attempt to verify visitors’ ages, and many of those viewing the exhibition on its first day were teenagers.

Soledad Canal, a 19-year-old Spanish tourist, said she had no idea that the show would feature x-rated content. “I am shocked. I could not believe my eyes. I came to see Andy Warhol pictures and I did not expect to see things like this in a museum,” she said.

Hugh McKinney, chairman of the National Family Campaign, said the works had no place in a gallery visited by families. “You have to ask if this is appropriate material for a gallery as prestigious as the Tate. There is a fine line between art and pornography in some cases. Families visit the Tate, and there is a real possibility that under-age and impressionable young people could see these works.”

The room which was to have displayed the Brooke Shields picture by artist Richard Prince stood empty yesterday. The Tate temporarily withdrew the image following a visit by officers from the Metropolitan Police obscene publications unit, but is debating whether to reinstate it with a more detailed warning about its content displayed on the wall outside.

Courtesy Telegraph.co.uk: United Kingdom

Such an oddly appropriate marriage between art and politics

The series of paintings will be completed during Sexpo, which will be held next weekend at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, and sold to visitors and collectors. Proceeds of the sales will be donated to charity.

“Even down under he’s a newsmaker,” says Pricasso, “widely influencing public opinion of South Africa worldwide.”

“As a fan of South Africa, and certainly a multiple visitor, I know that the majority of South Africans are opposite to what we read in the papers. The intention of this series of four paintings is not only to raise money for charity, but, importantly, to take a tongue-in-cheek position on a newsmaker who seems to grab headlines even when he has little to say.”

The Ignoramus series will be the latest installment of Pricasso’s collection of political works. Previously he has painted Tony Blair, George W Bush, DA leader Helen Zille and President Jacob Zuma.

Courtesy IOL.co.za: South Africa

Crowds gathered as Naomi McDonald took to the fourth plinth at noon on 21 September. Photograph: Sky Arts

The woman, Naomi McDonald, a dancer from Stringfellows lapdancing club, spent her allotted hour posing with a pole and shaking her bare breasts. Dressed in high heels and black knickers, the finale of her performance saw her pole-dancing to It’s Raining Men by the Weather Girls, which played on a small stereo she had brought with her.

People following the plinth on Twitter disapproved of the performance. Eeeyun said: “Hmm that’s not nudity, that’s exhibitionism. Wrist slapped!” Braincoffee added: “I don’t want to see the poor girl arrested, but am quite surprised that a second warning was not provided at least 15 mins ago.”

However, the woman proved popular in Trafalgar Square, with a large and predominantly male crowd gathering to take photographs.

McDonald is the eighth person to take her clothes off on the fourth plinth. Others have included a man known only as Gunter, who unleashed a live chicken before jumping off the plinth wearing nothing but an open robe. In August, a 49-year-old man called Simon was told to put his underwear back on by police after stripping naked.

It is not a crime to be naked in public, and police only intervene if members of the public complain.

Courtesy Guardian.co.uk: United Kingdom

The Fourth Plinth Under the Big Top

Naked Man Jumps off Fourth Plinth
Man Poses Naked on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth

The folks at Gizmodo report the Chandelier is made by a Dutch company, however, we haven’t found a list price… yet.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – The man had earlier thrown down a pair of inflatable sex dolls before stripping and hurling himself into the safety net which surrounds the plinth.

He also took a live chicken on to the plinth which had to be rescued by security staff after the man, who called himself Gunter, ran away.

A spokesman for the project said both the chicken the man were unhurt.

The fourth plinth is being occupied 24 hours a day by members of the public for 100 days as part of an art project called One And Other, created by artist Antony Gormley.

Free willy

On Thursday, some of the crowd were themselves naked except for paper signs taped around their waists on which they had written slogans about nudity.

They also shouted through megaphones to complain about double standards because scantily clad women were used as a marketing tool but naked men were unacceptable.

Gunter went on to the platform wearing a green SpiderMan-style suit with his face covered and then disappeared into a pop-up tent which he took with him.

He blew up inflatable models including the sex dolls and a crocodile.

Gunter later emerged and stripped naked before sitting with his head in his hands on the edge of the plinth. Towards the end of his hour he jumped into the safety net.

He then swung down from the plinth with a zebra print dressing gown hanging loosely off him, dropped on to the ground and ran through the square barefoot.

A spokeswoman said: “Everyone was laughing. There was quite a lot of hilarity but I don’t think there was any particular problem.”

Gunter is thought to be the seventh person to strip on the plinth.

On Sunday afternoon, Justin Holwell stripped and posed naked on the fourth plinth during his one-hour slot.

A member of the public has lodged a complaint which the Metropolitan Police is considering.

Courtesy BBC.co.uk

Naked Circus related news:

Man Poses Naked on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth

Underneath many layers of paint, she found that … Priapus has an erect penis that’s, well, basically porn-star sized. The restoration team thinks that the peen was probably in the original work and that, years later, another artist covered it up after getting complaints from the Catholic Church.

An alternate theory is that, back in the day, artists would paint their subjects nude and then paint clothes on top so as to make them as realistic as possible. Who knows which theory is right, but if you happen to be in Brazil next week, go check out the unveiling of the restored painting at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo.

Courtesy The Frisky

The double-glazing panel maker, from Loughborough, Leicestershire, received a favourable reception and was applauded as he put his clothes back on to come down Photo: PA

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – Mr Holwell let it all hang out as part of the long running Antony Gormley One & Other Exhibition in which people take it in turns to spend an hour on the plinth.

The double-glazing panel maker, from Loughborough, Leicestershire, received a favourable reception and was applauded as he put his clothes back on to come down.

He said afterwards: ”When I decided to go on this, I didn’t really have any idea what to do. I was chatting to my mates about it, they see me as a bit of an exhibitionist, this seemed the natural way to go.

”I like to show off and pose a bit, I tend to run around with no clothes on after a few beers, but it’s always been at friends’ houses before – this is my first public exhibition.

”It was good, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was a bit nervous when I was going up there, but once you are up there, you deal with it. I seemed to have a good reception, it’s a bit strange having cameras pointing at you, but it was a fun experience.

”I was expressing my personality, and I would definitely do it again.”

Asked of what he would say to anyone who disapproved of it, he said: ”It’s the human form, every one’s the same, it’s not like I’m showing off something that no one else has got.”

Passer-by Mark Meagher, 36, of Fleet, Hampshire, an account manager, said: ”It’s very amusing. The reaction from people has been good.”

Mr Meagher’s wife, Priscilla Brunning, 34, a program manager, said: ”At first I thought he should do a few muscle man poses, but in the end we respected him for standing there and doing nothing.

”You’ve got to admire him to do that for an hour.”

Courtesy Telegraph.co.uk

Even we're speechless.

I’m going to leave off the sender’s name and reprint the entire email below so you can enjoy it as much as I did. Now the funny thing about this protest is that the gentleman has clearly scrutinized our website and reviewed the photo archive to draw his conclusions. Also, at the end of his tirade he uses deviant sexual terms so obscure that I had to consult wikipedia to figure out what he was saying (a “hot Carl???”). (Video of these competitions after the jump.)

My take, I think his moral high-horse veneer is hiding a secret naughty life or at least secret naughty life aspirations. When you come out of whatever closet you are in, sir, we are happy to have you as a contestant in the 2010 tour. Until then, keep on fantasizing. Fantasies are what our black-president-electing, first-amendment-thumping nation was founded upon. When the fantasies have been destroyed, then the communists truly have won. God bless America. God bless air sex.

The email, in its entirety:

Now, I’m glad my grandmother passed away a few years ago; knowing something SO stupid, like Air Sex, exists would’ve killed her anyway. Groups/events like this are one of the many reasons that America is as screwed up and politically divided as it has ever been. Thanks again for taking advantage of an exceptionally written document (The Constitution Of the United States of America) and increasing the gap. People like you have no traditional values and, with the help of many other moronic groups/ideas, continue to build a force that grinds our ‘ever shrinking’ common sense closer to nothing. You have none, that’s a fact that you can’t argue. You got caught jerking off (probably in an embarrassing way), is that how you ‘spawned’ the idea?

Where would you place your dignity, or our dignity as a Nation? A culture? A community or a race? And spare me a parrot’s response like: “well, we have our Nation’s 1st black president.” Now I know you’re struggling for the next cookie-cutter response like: “We’re only exercising our 1st Amendment right.” Well, so am I: “what a stupid idea and you suck.”

Is it a coincidence that the internally & externally ugly ‘contestants’ on your show have to have sex with air? No, they’re losers and so are you. Take your stupidity on the Letterman show loser. Why don’t you have your grandparents get up there and show how your mommy and daddy got here? What’s next, an Air Dirty Sanchez or an Air Hot Carl show? I’ve wasted too much time with your stupidity, I’m late for my Air Dutch Oven audition.

Courtesy of Air Sex Blog