Who'll Save the Children from Katie Couric, Britney Spears Vaginart?

Takashi Murakami's "My Lonesome Cowboy"(John Del Signore/Gothamist)

Not us—see it below in all its NSFW, uh, glory. The "it" we're talking about here, be warned, is artist Jonathan Horowitz's 2008 piece "CBS Evening News/www.Britneycrotch.org," which frames two big digital prints on top of each other: The top image is Katie Couric at her news desk, and the bottom is Britney Spears’s infamous crotch shot, photoshopped to match Couric's upper half. It's the artistic antithesis of a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, and you can see it at P.S. 1 in Queens with your own eyes (though the museum politely asks that visitors not flush their gouged-out their eyes down the toilet).

Horowitz's provactive mash-up has writer Fred Bernstein miffed, because he visited the exhibit with his 7-year-old twin sons but didn't notice the warning sign on the wall. Luckily, he spotted the piece before his sons did, and he quickly ushered them out of the room before they witnessed unspeakable horror. But it was a close call! In a City Room opinion piece, Bernstein declares, "It’s O.K. if P.S. 1 wants to show vulvas in extreme close-up... What’s not O.K. is that the only warning to parents was a tiny sign at the entrance to the gallery."

Worse, Bernstein sees these pee-pees and wee-wees everywhere, and it's getting so he can't take his sons to any museum without being confronted by sculptures of masturbating cowboys swinging giant jizz lassos (left). That's what happened at the Brooklyn Museum's Murakami retrospective, and while some visitors found it "amusing to watch parents as they tried to herd their kids and toddlers away from ejaculating penises and disturbing videos," Bernstein's says it's no joke. He proposes a new rule requiring "the warning signs should be at least as large as the exposed genitalia"—but that would force some galleries to basically install giant billboards!

Via See Tim Blog

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in Arts and Events on August 22, 2009 4:44 PM

Comments [rss]

grandzu

I assume Bernstein did not see the mini size video of the lady with the huge tits in the crack in the floor inside by the front entrance. When I was there, a dad pointed it out to his kid.

militza

holy cow!

I saw this last night when I went to the Warm Up.

it was funny, though the other exhibits were a bit more interesting.

also, apparently some parents didn't care about the content (I saw plenty of hipsters with their little ones in tow.)

PS-that place is like a damn rave! I recommend just staying inside and enjoying the exhibits. my 2 cents.

Sommelier

"As a hipster I am outraged by this accusation almost as much as I am outraged by nudity, art and rude remarks"

The fact that you fail to see the irony in this statement makes it the most hilarious statement I've read all week.

Here's a hint: if you call yourself a hipster, you're anything but hip. You're a poseur.

Bort

LOL yr username is Sommelier and your avatar is a wine key. Yr a fucking nerd.

Billiamsburg

it's called sarcasm grandpa

ides_of_march

Yuck.

greeen

'provactive'? that is a new term for pro-actively provocative? Perhaps that is the only real thing the artist or filcher intended- to provoke for the sake of publicity, which seems to have worked.

meh, I don't see that a child is going to be ruined for life by seeing this stuff. What'll ruin them is their parents shusshing the whole thing and scooting them away from it as if it is inherently BAD. Geezus it is just a little naked vag. so TF what.! I think an enlightened parent would let a kid see the ejaculating cowboy and laugh at it together. It is so ridiculous.

movi

Um... don't know the Gothamist lingo, but what does NSFW stand for?

mellow_fellow

Not safe for [viewing while at] work

And it's Internet shorthand, not just Gothamist lingo. Next time you see a term you're unfamiliar with, look it up in the Urban Dictionary.

valeriob

Peter that is nasty. 70s pin ups are so... 80s.

NannyState, excellent point

kapusta

...first of all "My Lonesome Cowboy"...it's kind of silly...the ridiculous, colossal ejaculation...his hair seems to be ejaculating...next the two holes...Katie's mouth hole and the cunt hole...gee...this "Artist" (and i use the word loosely) needs some serious therapy...women are just holes to this person and why pick on Katie Couric?...maybe she's just another entertainer in the entertainment business and of course Britney Spears's cunt is entertainment and i think i've just figured it out...

Peter

Shaved women are the devil's spawn. Nothing is finer than a thick, rich, luxuriant bush, overflowing with magnificent aromas and flavors.

matty

There's good art and bad art and the above is most certainly good art.

tolu1973

The reality is that those little kids are hyper-sexual and a lot of the art is about the crazy sexual lives that many people have starting from a very young age.

Did you know that little kids are constantly spreading SYDs, like HPV, touching their genitalia and then others on the playground, spreading genital warts all over the place. A couple of doctors told me about this last week.

Gross little shits!

NannyState

Better her than Dan Rather :)

Trilby16

I think Katie, especially, would have a legitimate beef.

Rfive

There's a large Ron Mueck @ the Hirshorn in DC, with his nutsack out. What do you think about that?

http://www.library-of-rain.com/fileserver/ronmueck/ron-mueck-big-man-1.jpg

grandzu

That Ron Mueck show was already at Brooklyn Museum a couple of years back and no one made a big fuss.

Also at the PS1 show, the video of the woman mud wrestling a giant sausage pillow in a bed was more WTF?

Quenepa

I love when you post NSFW stuff - it gets the hippies and hipsters all fluttered lol I love Gothamist!

Bort

Hippies and Hipsters? Really? Of all the stereotyped groups you could have joked about having a problem with NSFW content, you picked the two that stereotypically don't work?

Back to comment school for you.

Billiamsburg

As a hipster I am outraged by this accusation almost as much as I am outraged by nudity, art and rude remarks about our nation's most valuable resource: children, who should be able to run around all the chelsea galleries and contemporary art museums rubbing their precious, sticky fingers over anything they want while their parents call their ridiculous names out over and over again in a quiet, crowded space while digging for juice boxes in the massive stroller blocking the doorway they for some reason need to push around a 7-year-old who is perfectly capable of walking on his own.

JohnTheDesigner

Freedom of speech is sacred until it offends the entitled artist community.

Why don't I turn the tables, make snide/snarky/offensive/disrespectfal "artistic" commentaries about Horowitz & Murakami, and see if they'll support my right to freedom of speech, or would they protest it "hate speech"?

HymietownHero

No adult would protest your snarky comments as "hate speech", and no professional artist would give a shit what you think, much less deny your right to think it.

Spirit of 76

So now everybody wants to know does Katie shave, have a landing strip, Brazilian wax or just go au naturel? Wait, no, nobody wants to know. Nobody even wants to think about it.

Hmm. Bernstein would want a warning sign outside a room containing a reproduction of Michelangelo's "David"? Although I really don't see any artistic value to Murakami's work above. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.