Take that hideous thing outside

I was going to apologize for this being a “lazy” post because it’s mainly photos but then I remembered that photography is a legitimate art form. So I withdraw the apology that I have not offered. If you’ll allow me a moment of bloated egoism, I think some of these pics are fetching.

Winter approaches and it’s time to bid adieu to outdoor art exhibits. I love the monstrosities that some artists create and I’ll miss them. Here are the last two works until spring.

Our old pal Jeff Koons will be selling another balloon animal at Christie’s fall contemporary art auction. This time, it’s Balloon Monkey (Orange), estimated to sell for $20,000,000-$30,000,000.

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It doesn’t look much like a monkey at all, whereas his balloon dogs look like…well…dogs.

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Before each auction, they hold free previews in the gallery. If a show of that caliber opened at MoMA, the line would stretch down 54th Street to 5th Avenue. I don’t understand why more people don’t take advantage.

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This isn’t the first Koons sculpture to appear in front of Christie’s Rockefeller Center location. A while back, there was a balloon dog and some tulips.

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Admiring the art deco frieze.

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Selfie!

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I like the reactions. Tourists and New Yorkers alike scrunch their faces into fists of incomprehension. Can you blame them? The real fun starts when they see the auction estimate. I find these pieces tremendous fun but am depressed that someone would (and could) pay that kind of money for something like this. Rich people are certifiably insane. It’s a FACT.

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 Another day at the office.

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Cop scopes bad asses and robbers.

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I’ll follow-up with my semi-annual auction post in mid-November. Y’all come back now! Ya hear?

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This piece is in the plaza at Lincoln Center. It’s in front of the fountains.

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I had to double-up on my pics because the exposures were so different. Due to the inherent limitations of my iPhone, I could only take a picture of the image on the screen OR the plaza, but not both simultaneously. I think each result is equally interesting.

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Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada) 2014, by Irish artist John Gerrard, is giant LED wall that re-creates a Nevada solar thermal power plant and the surrounding desert.

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The image situates the sun, moon and stars as they would appear at the actual Nevada site over the course of a year. The view slowly morphs from ground to satellite image every 60 minutes. The view is constantly, albeit, very slowly, changing throughout the course of the exhibit. It might be more interesting if they sped up the movement a bit. You don’t see much change just standing there.

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Interesting aside: That sign you see at the bottom are LED lights embedded into the steps leading up to the Plaza. There’s a whole series of them. They scroll upcoming Lincoln Center events and the word “welcome” in multiple languages.

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My colleague at work saw The Ramones at Vassar when she was a teenager. I’d pay a significant amount of money to watch The Ramones play in front of an audience of Vassar co-eds. Who wouldn’t?