Hrag Vartanian

• Deutsche Welle - Berlin Gay Memorial Vandalized…Again
  For the second time in four months, vandals have broken a window on Berlin's memorial to gay victims of the Nazis.
  (tags: lgbt humanrights sculpture)
• Smoking Gun - Best Police Mug Shots Of 2008
  My biggest question: "Who would tattoo Psycho on their forehead?" I take that back…there are tons of questions this slideshow evokes. (hat tip HC)
  (tags: internet popculture)
• TechCrunch - MySpace Quietly Begins Encouraging Users To Use Their Real Names
  Is the age of Internet anonymity slowly coming to an end? A big part of me hopes so.
  (tags: internet blogosphere)

Brazilian artist Alexandre Orion has been creating an interesting body of work that simultaneously cleans up the city while highlighting the deadly pollution in our midst…I’ll let his Flickr page explain:

Ossario is the name of this reverse graffiti intervention. It is through a process of subtraction, scraping off layers of soot from vehicle exhaust built up on tunnel walls to produce over 300 meters of images with more than 3500 human skulls.

His work reminds me of the art of Kim Abeles, whose “The Smog Collectors” series most famously used LA smog to create art objects that were at once repulsive and intriguing:

The Smog Collectors materialize the reality of the air we breath. They achieve their potency most effectively when the image contradicts their substance…

I place stencil images on transparent or opaque materials, then leave these on the roof of my studio and let the particulate matter in the heavy air fall upon them. When the stencil is removed, the images reveal themselves…they are “footprints of the sky.”

Orion is part of a new breed of street artist who likes to challenge our notions of vandalism–in New York we have Ellis G., Aakash Nihalani & Poster Boy, among others. The city buffs his works by washing the tunnels. In my opinion, he’s a friggin’ humanitarian.

I’ve seen a less evolved variety of this type of tunnel-based pollution art in LA, but nothing quite so enchanting…if I am permitted to even use that word to describe skulls scrapped out of soot.

I spotted these coin displays at the U.S. Mint in New Orleans, LA and Veken & I couldn’t help but think they look a hell of a lot like today’s iPod.

This letter to the editor in today’s New York Times about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate seat is priceless:

To the Editor:

It is amusing that Andrew M. Cuomo, who owes his whole career to his dad, may not get the Senate seat of Hillary Rodham Clinton (who owes her whole career to her husband) because David A. Paterson (who owes his whole career to his dad) may give it to Caroline Kennedy (who owes her whole career to her dad).

You would think a state as large as New York could find someone who deserves something on his or her own.

David Machlowitz
Westfield, N.J., Dec. 16, 2008

{hat tip NK}