Leonardo de Vinci Exhibition in Time Square

Photo from Wired.


If you live in NYC, you should stop by the Discovery Times Square Exposition. The inventions of Leonardo de Vinci is being displayed through March. Some inventions come to mind is the Great Kite flying machine. De Vinci invented all sorts of futuristic machines, including robots, weapons and mechanical devices.

Shepard Fairey: I Lied

Turns out Shepard Fairey did use AP's photo of Barack Obama for his famed Hope poster. When AP claimed Fairey used one of their images, he went to length and lie and delete evidence proving that he did use the picture. See our original post here. Tsk tsk.

Fairey still believes he has a case, arguing his work is protected under fair use. He believes that the image was altered enough that he can claim it as his. Well, that's fine - maybe he should've just stick to this argument in the first place instead of lying. His credibility is now in the gutters.

McDonald's in The Louvre

In December, McDonald's will be opening a food court in the underground mall adjoining The Carrousel du Louvre. The Louvre is the world's most visited museum and France is McDonald's second largest market (next to the U.S.).. seems like a perfect match, yes?

Some people are having their disdained with a fast food chain next to high art. Something about mixing Mona Lisa with cheeseburger seems a bit strange. Thoughts?

Naked Brooke Shields: Art or Child Pornography?

Photo by Garry Gross

An exhibition entitled "Spiritual America" by American artist Richard Prince was supposed to be displayed at Tate Modern, but Scotland Yard removed it, afraid that it would break obscenity laws. The object in question is the above picture, a naked 10-year-old Brooke Shields.

Garry Gross, a photographer from New York originally took the photo as part of a series entitled The Woman in the Child - a comparison of the adult woman in girls, or to show off the femininity in a young child. Gross was hired by Brooke Shields' mother to take pictures of her little girl (as a model), and even signed a contract giving him full rights to exploit the image.

Brooke Shields attempted legal actions to stop Gross from publicly displaying the photos but failed. However the multiple legal proceedings left Gross in financial burden and his reputation ruined. Richard Prince offered to buy the rights of the photos.

The photo was supposed to be a part of the Pop Life Exhibition in Tate Modern, but as stated previously, it was taken down by officials, afraid that the photo might be viewed sexually.

Honestly, whether it is art or not, I have to say I'm bit uncomfortable looking at the picture.

Yummy Body Part Art

The picture above probably speaks for itself.

A Thai art student sculpted, er.. baked.. realistic dismembered body parts out of bread. The son of a baker became fascinated with anatomy and decided to bake displays of human parts. Using dough, raisins, chocolate and other ingredients, this guy built "Body Bakery," the attraction that's being displayed and sold in Thailand.

I am particularly fascinated by the morbid nature of this piece, especially since I can hardly bake normal looking bread. Would you eat those heads?



Read the story here.

First Superman Comic Sold for $317,200!

A copy of the first Superman comic is a rare item. But one was sold at an Internet auction for $317,200.

The 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1 features Superman lifting a green car on the cover. Only 100 copies of this still exists.

The man who won the auction was John Dolmayan, drummer for rock band System of a Down. He was purchasing it for a client of his.

The previous owner who sold the comic only paid 35 cents for the item.

I saw a copy of this at the NYC Comic Con and drooled.

Subway Motion Art, aka Masstransiscope

I live in Brooklyn and works at lower Manhattan. To get from point A to point B, I take the subway - the B line to be exact. During the ride, most of the time my head is buried in the book. But one morning I just finished reading my book so for the rest of my ride, my eyes were wandering around while the subway takes me to my destination. Right after the train left Dekalb Ave, I noticed something was moving out the window. It looked like a series of animated paintings. They kept going until the train hits the Manhattan bridge.

So the next day, to prove that I wasn't insane, I paid closer attention. And sure enough, there goes the animated paintings again. I did some research and the piece is called "Masstransiscope" by Bill Brand. The motion art was done in 1980, placed on an abandoned platform at Myrtle Avenue. The art disappeared for a while and apparently in late 2006, work was being done to the art for restoration. And now it's back for our viewing pleasure.

According to the nyc subway website:

The animation was based on the zoetrope, essentially a series of single frames viewed through slits as the train moved past the station. The brief glimpses of the frames appeared to animate the artwork.

It's pretty cool. Take a look:

Art or Vandalism?

Shepard Fairey, the artist that created the fame "Hope" posters for Barack Obama is now facing charges for graffiti. Fairey is also the mysterious artist that posted those Obey Giant posters all over cities. Boston is now placing two charges of vandalism on him.

There was also some dispute with the Obama poster. Fairey used the image of Obama from a photo taken by an ex-AP photographer, Mannie Garcia. Garcia doesn't feel the need to fight Fairey for copyright infringement, but AP does.

Fairey believes that public places shouldn't be just used for commercials, so he filled those places with his posters. Is this considered art or is it vandalism?

Last Day as Daibe Beads

Today will be the last day as Daibe Beads. As of tomorrow, this blog will have a new url: SHUKYSHAKE.BLOGSPOT.COM. Please update your bookmark, links, RSS feeds and what have you. Thanks for all your continual support!

Spiderman Swings to Broadway!

"Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark" is the new musical coming to Broadway. The music and lyrics are by U2's Bono and the Edge and it's directed by Julie Taymor ("The Lion King")

The musical will start previews at the Hilton Theater on January 16, 2010. Rumor has it that this is the biggest budget Broadway show - about $40 million. Even though the producers have been hush-hush about the casting, Evan Rachel Wood is rumored to star as Mary Jane Watson. Wood was quoted to TV Guide that she was "definitely going to do it."

The Broadway version will involve an origin story as well as introducing new characters.

The storyline might be a hit or miss, depending on how they spin it. But big Broadway productions are always pleasing to watch. 

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Please update your bookmarks and links to SHUKYSHAKE.BLOGSPOT.COM on March 1.

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The Met Closes Shops

You know those Metropolitan Museum of Art stores sprinkled around the country? Say goodbye to them. Due to the economic crisis, The Met announced that they're closing 15 stores around the country. There were 23 stores, so doing the math, that only leaves 8 stores left.

In addition, the Met is also imposing a hiring freeze and cutting down travel and entertainment costs for their employees. Their revenue had decreased 25% since June 2008 due to lower numbers in membership and attendance.

The Met currently accepts donations for entrance fee. Perhaps they can charge a minimum requirement entrance fee. I don't think people will cringe if they charge everyone at least $5 to get in (as long as they don't go crazy.) It might help out a little? 

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Please update your bookmarks and urls for this blog to SHUKYSHAKE.BLOGSPOT.COM on March1.

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Women Use More Brain than Men!

According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (fancy!), women use more brain than men when it comes to beauty.

Researchers tested 10 men and 10 women, asking them to rate photos and paintings as either "beautiful" or "not beautiful." Scientists also examined images of magnetic fields produced by electrical currents in the brains. The results were in the first 300 milliseconds, there was no difference but longer than 300 milliseconds, activity was greater for objects that were rated "beautiful." They also noticed that men were more focused on the right side of the brain while women uses both sides of the brain.

Surely we do not need research like this for us to know that women use more of their brain than men!! But all kidding aside, the measure of beauty can't really be determined through datas and experiments. The factors varies from preference to environment, etc. 

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Please remember to update your bookmarks and links to SHUKYSHAKE.BLOGSPOT.COM on March 1.

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Las Vegas Art Museum Closing

The Las Vegas Art Musuem is closing its doors on February 28 thanks to the current economic turmoil. The Museum's executive director already resigned because the board members announced that there will be budget cuts, which would affect salaries and layoffs. Three months after the director's resignation, the museum decided to close down.

The musuem was formed 59 years ago. The board members say the musuem will remain an "entity" and keep its name in hopes that when the economy improves, they can open the musuem again. Let's hope so!

Remember - on March 1st this blog will be changing its URL. Please update your links and bookmarks to SHUKYSHAKE.BLOGSPOT.COM.

I'm Back - CHANGES ARE COMING! PLEASE READ!

Hi guys! I really do apologize for my lack of updates. Yes it's been about half a year since I last posted on this blog. I really do appreciate the few of my readers who dropped in once a while to check up and I'm really sorry you haven't seen anything new. No doubt a couple of you probably gave up on me!

Things will be more active again from now on. It was one of my New Year's resolution after all- to dive back into my craft. So what have I been doing for the past few months?

My daytime job and my side projects (non-craft related project) has been taking up all of my time. I unfortunately had to abandon my Daibe Beads project. I had a good run but I've also learned that I dove into Daibe Beads too prematurely without actually doing all the necessary prep work before launching the store. I find myself having difficulty keeping track and fulfilling orders on time which isn't fair to the customers. Doing one full time job, one side project and Daibe Beads was too much. So I stopped to take a step back and re-evaluate.

During the last couple months, I've been working on a new line of creativity. I've also been researching, crunching numbers, doing the business side of things. I'm almost ready to launch my new store. But first I have to fade away Daibe Beads. My stores are slowly going away. As for this blog, I did enjoy putting together pieces of news floating around the art world and featuring fellow indie crafty sellers. So I will keep this blog but the url will be changed.

On March 1st, the new url of this blog will be ShukyShake.blogspot.com.

Thanks for bearing with me during this transaction and I look forward to your comments again!