Auction Chronicles

Every object has a story.

Posts Tagged ‘art’

Say “CHUBBY BUNNY”

August 22nd, 2009

A few weeks ago, my four-year-old came home from camp, complaining of a pain at the gum line of one of his bottom teeth.

When I asked him how it happened, he told me that another boy did it to him. Alarmed that maybe my kid had been punched in the face without anyone noticing, I probed a little more.

“He didn’t hit me. He didn’t mean it,” my son said. “He was just chubby cheeking me!”

If you also enjoy various forms of facial persecution, eBay has a box of four life-sized fiberglass heads available. A rod with bolts pulls appears to pull the the cheeks together and the eyes are sewn shut. And you can paint them whatever color your heart desires.

Visit the “Tortured Face” auction.

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Posted in peculiar products

Tags: art decoration halloween torture

Tampon Mona Lisa

August 21st, 2009

The most famous half smile in history. Is she keeping a secret or being coy? To seller “ylyly,” that enigmatic expression conceals a need for Motrin concealed inside of it. Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is, in fact, the Aunt Flo-na Lisa. In 2005, he festooned an image of the infamous daughter of a Florentine silk merchant with the finery of modern menstrual technology – about 200 Tampax tampons.

Actually, “ylyly”(better known on YouTube as parody artist and poet Dave Morice), doesn’t really explain why he felt the need to “tampoon” one of the Louvre’s best-known treasures, but he does chronicle the process of creating his homage and the variety of responses he’s received about her, including words of shame from a Midwestern librarian and support and encouragement from Tampax corporate:

Morice is selling Tampon Mona Lisa for a minimum bid of $2,600, along with a collection of comments that he’s received about her during earlier attempts to sell her on eBay.

Visit the tampon Mona Lisa auction

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Posted in Art for art's sake, Make your own folklore, audacious auctions

Tags: art comedy Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa tampons

The Devil on the Can

October 3rd, 2008

Apparently, there are some black velvet paintings that even Tijuana black velvet painters consider “tasteless.” While “Professional Mexican Velvet Elvis Artist from Tijuana” L. Zamora usually creates high-class renditions of Bob Marley, tigers and Elvis, he also has a stash of “less religiously-themed works” featuring nas-tay sexual acts and an apparently controversial (due to its non-piety) image of Lucifer on the pot, currently for sale on eBay.

The listing describes it as “the tackiest Tijuana Black Velvet of them all, an original hand-painted black velvet painting of Satan, The Father of Lies, using the facilities, aka ‘The Devil on the Can On Black Velvet.’” It also takes care to make sure no one mixes up this black velvet painting artist with those who sold black velvet portraits of various Republican politicians at the 1996 Republican National Convention.

Visit the Velvet Devil on the Toilet Auction.

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Posted in Art for art's sake, Make your own folklore, pop culture criticism redux

Tags: art black velvet painting tacky

On Sundays, I juggle jet skis

September 7th, 2008

Ebay seller “krazykel2006″ seems to do a brisk business hawking Gothic fetishwear, like platform heels, patent leather stiletto ballet slippers and clothing that uses metal as though it were a natural fiber. But in a new auction, she offers a twenty-foot tall robot sculpture that’s currently standing in the lake behind her house. Composed of metal, wood and rubber, he has ribs made out of tires and is holding a jet ski in one hand, a keg in the other.

Making this sounds like a pretty major endeavor to me, unless you have superhuman strength. But the seller’s only explanation is that her husband “was bored one day.”

Visit the Robot sculpture transformer auction.

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Posted in What's the story?

Tags: art Gothic large strange

The luminescent supper

September 1st, 2008

Pennsylvania artist Mark Beekman spent the last year constructing a five foot by ten foot, 124,418-peg Lite-Brite reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” It’s not the first time that Judas’ betrayal has been recreated in unusual materials. One is carved in salt in Poland’s Wieliczka salt mine. And contemporary Brazilian artist Vik Muniz redrew the entire thing in Bosco chocolate syrup.

Beekman’s provides extensive information about the technology and muscle he employed to create a glowing version of the famous fresco that stands at about one-third the size of the original. But he doesn’t have a lot to say about why he decided to make it, outside of the fact that he thought museums were boring when he was a kid, and he intends to make art more fun.

The piece is being auctioned for a second time because its original bidders weren’t able to come up with the funds. It will be featured in the newest “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” book, and it holds the certified, Guinness record for world’s largest Lite-Brite.