[The artist, Joshua] Hawkins, who apologized to Mr. Comte on his Facebook page, said he was still trying to figure out the real identity of the man who hired him, whom he described as tall, fit and in his 40s....“He knew [Comte's] building, he knew his name and he knew he wasn’t there,” Mr. Hawkins said. Around Peoria, a riverfront city of about 110,000 people in central Illinois, the episode has spawned an untold number of theories about who might have commissioned the mural....
Mr. Hawkins asked [the person who hired him] what the Russian words meant and the man replied, “Peace, land, cookies.” “I thought he was opening a bakery,” Mr. Hawkins said.... Mr. Hawkins said he was not vexed with his mysterious patron... “The guy paid me and he paid me pretty well.... So I’m not mad at all about that.”
Meanwhile, the building owner says he's getting hate mail for painting over the mural.
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It's truly conceptual art.
Ugly as heck, but the concept was brilliant.
Intriguing. It reminds me of the fantastic book PRANKS! published years ago by RE/SEARCH Books. The book is a compendium of various public pranks perpetrated by a wild array of artists, anarchists, and discontents. (There was a PRANKS!2 published, as well.)
I call BS on the mysterious stranger hiring him. I think the artist painted it for publicity. He owes the building owner money for that 'prank'.
Apparently it wouldn't play there...
I also kinda doubt the artist's story. But it could have happened I suppose. I thought the painting was fairly funny though. The strong Soviet theme contrasting with the indulgent Western decadence of Cookie Monster is funny. Depending on what the building was used for, if I were the owner I might have kept the painting.
Peace, land, cookies
Democracy, whiskey, sexy.
Will it play in Peoria
Intriguing. It reminds me of the fantastic book PRANKS! published years ago by RE/SEARCH Books.
Cookie, I know we don't see eye-to-eye, but you have to find this funny.
Mediocre execution of a brilliant concept. Still, I would have left it there. It's just a generic brick building, the mural didn't cover something better.
It's surprising how poorly it was done. And the artist is a moron for not demanding to see the permission from Sesame Workshop (formerly Children's Television Workshop) for use of its copywrited intellectual property. The BEST case scenario is that the mural gets painted over in a day even if the building owner wanted it, because SW and HBO would come down on them like a ton of bricks
seems to me the New York Times is ripping off without credit a story that first appeared in the competing New York Post.
Pity the Times didn't pick up the Rielle Hunter Biden story.
Times never does original "reporting."
It can do original lies as "told to them by anonymous sources" but never "reporting" of actual facts.
I trust the artist paid the cost of having his mural painted over. I don’t care whether he was the pranker (as ambisinistral and I suspect) or one of the pranked, but the store owner needs to be made whole.
That? Soviet style? Not a chance.
And yes, the artist's story is fishy.
I was just about to say what CWJ said-- that's not Soviet style, it's just stupid.
It's a piss-poor mural anyway, at least at this stage.
Narr
How soon it washes away
I don't hate Art.
Narr
I don't even know the guy
I didn't want to deal with the NYT:DuckDudkGo: cookie monster mural peoria.
And just for icing on the cake, the city building inspectors fine the building owner $1,000/day for an unlicensed "sign".
I have no idea if this happened but I id be more surprised if it didn't than I would be if it did.
City: "you have an unlicensed sign there. That's $1000/back to when they started painting"
Owner: "I had nothing to do with it! It was vandalism!
City:" fuck you. Pay me"
John Henry
Any fool knows that Cookie Monster's vocabulary is and always was extremely limited to "Me want cookie!", "Me eat cookie!" or (with emphasis),"COOKIE!" Sesame Street provides no evidence that the blue cookie eater can speak or understand Russian.
Artist Joshua Hawkins, likely broke the law in painting the mural without a city permit for alteration of a commercial building in hand. Contractors are usually held responsible for acquiring such permits.
Sesame Street has been produced in something like 70 languages.
In LA i wonder if building owner penalized for unilaterally whitewashing a public mural.
Let this be a lesson to shopkeepers on Madison's State St. Those boarded-up windows are here to stay.
Hawkins said: “The guy paid me and he paid me pretty well.... So I’m not mad at all about that.”
So I say: "Open up Quickbooks or provide a bank deposit ticket that shows evidence of payment received." Bookkeeping is required, especially now that the world knows that you claim that a sale transpired. Then there is pay made to the 10-man crew, as well as paint and painting supplies purchases.
It's not the first time that a Sesame Street character has been involved in international propaganda, I went looking for the Bert - Bin Laden connection, but I found more than just that.
https://www.businessinsider.com/12-sesame-street-scandals-that-have-plagued-the-shows-history-2012-11#after-911-bert-was-featured-in-a-placard-next-to-bin-laden-5
Oh, and who can forget the Big Bird - Mitt Romney controversy?
@Readering said...
In LA i wonder if building owner penalized for unilaterally whitewashing a public mural.
With apologies to Neil Diamond: LA's fine but it ain't home to the Cookie Monster art and Peoria's sign with Muppet graffiti ain't shown no more.
печенье
Peace, Land, Cookies. Bezos 2024!
"Peoria, a riverfront city of about 110,000 people in central Illinois..."
Chicagoans would say it's in southern Illinois. Everything south of Roosevelt Road is southern Illinois.
Fiber and Molly Mcgee were both born in Peoria
John Henry
How about that! An intentionally funny piece in the NYT.
@Readering said...
"In LA i wonder if building owner penalized for unilaterally whitewashing a public mural."
The canvas didn't belong to him. He appropriated it without permission or compensation. That is theft is it not counsellor?
Also. He's not Banksy.
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