Tomorrow artist and filmmaker Peter Greenaway will unveil his multimedia installation, based on the Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, at Park Avenue Armory. We're told the epic piece features a "precise clone of the original masterpiece set within a full-scale replica of the church in Milan which houses the painting" transforming it "into an evocative multimedia collage of light, sound, and theatrical illusion." Greenaway's installation will only be around until January 6th, and you can buy tickets here.
Artist Brings The Last Supper To Park Avenue
Christie's Sued Over Claim They Misidentified A Da Vinci
A UK woman, Jeanne Marchig, has filed a lawsuit against Christie's in Manhattan federal court. Marchig claims when she took a piece she owned with her husband to the auction house in 1997, they told her it was the work of an anonymous 19th century German artist. It ended up selling at auction the following year for a measly $20,000. Thing is, it may be the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, with an actual value of $150 million!
Chase Talks Sopranos
Remember the summer night that Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" rang throughout the homes of Sopranos fans? Followed by a good week or two of debate on how David Chase chose to whack the series, everyone on the inside was pretty silent. Now Chase is speaking out about his decision. The AP reports:
He strongly suggests that, no, Tony Soprano didn't get whacked moments later as he munched onion rings with his family at Holsten's. And mostly Chase wonders why so many viewers got so worked up over the series' non-finish.more ›
Graffiti Irony
In one of those weird societal flip-flops, The New York Times today reports on a group of graffiti artists who are suing to limit the expropriation of their commercial property for public display. The Tats Cru and a dozen other street artists whose work don the walls of buildings all over the city are suing the author, publisher, and an exhibitor of a book about urban murals - aka in NYC. They feel that the expropriation via public display of their work, which is rooted in a culture of communal ownership of public space, has infringed on their property rights.
Teacher's Demonstration Too Physic-al?
Uh-oh - a teacher's attempt to make Newton's Third Law of Motion ("For every action force there is an equal, but opposite, reaction force.") more understandable may have backfired. The Daily News reports that 18 year teaching veteran Leonard Brown has been suspended from Benjamin Cardozo High School after a female student says he touched her breast.
He asked the student - from Cardozo's elite Da Vinci Math Science Institute - to hold her hands up against his and lean against his hands with all of her weight, he said. He also put his hands on her shoulders before the demonstration.more ›
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-verse
LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other.
The Cinecultist's Weekly Movie Picks: Wolverine edition
This week the box office juggernaut that is the new , there's still tons of repertory to take in instead this weekend.
Extra, Extra
- The guy who stabbed a 10-month-old baby in Washington Heights last September has been found mentally unfit to stand trail
The Cinecultist's Weekly Movie Picks: Albino Monks Edition
The conspiracies are swirling, the evangelical Christians are frothing at the mouth, it can only mean one thing: Ron Howard's opens this weekend. Will you get sucked in to the Hollywood thriller madness? It's not even Memorial Day yet but Gothamist already has summer blockbuster fever.
Mona Lisa in the City
We spied somone (from the TatsCru, we think) spraying an image of the Mona Lisa on Mulberry Street earlier, and we thought, oh, cool, maybe there will be a series of old paintings. But we were too naive, because when we approached the ladder, the graffiti artist was examining the picture he was supposed to copy...and there's a mention of The Da Vinci Code movie! Augh! Gothamist read The Da Vinci Code, and you know what, it's just like Dan Brown's earlier book, Angels and Demons, except it involves the Louvre and Jesus, so we never quite understood the Da Vinci Code fever. But today has been a day of Da Vinci Code media onslaught, from Tom Hanks' ode to his make-up guy in the Times (he doesn't discuss his hair, though) and how the judge in the Da Vinci Code (book) case encoded some message in his ruling. This confluence of synergy must mean we will have to see the movie, or else we'll have secretly bad hair when we're in NoHo.
Opinionist: NYC faces global warming fallout
Normally we run op-ed pieces on Sunday, but this one is about Earth Day, which is today! It was written by Molly Dobkin, the twin-sister of the publisher. Even though they are twins and share a telepathic bond, the opinions expressed in it belong only to her.
Huzzah! One Less Sign In The City!
Columbus Circle DaVinci Advertecture, we barely knew ye.
It was too big. It was too high. It was illegally installed in an area where it was prohibited anyway. And yesterday, it was gone.more ›
Topher Grace vs. Peter Parker?
Spiderman 3 Director Sam Raimi announced that lanky 70’s Show guy has just joined Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunset in the cast of Spider-Man 3. "Topher Grace is an extraordinarily talented actor," said Raimi, "and will be perfect for the complexities of the role we are developing."
Hitting the Books
The first hints of summer still make us think of final exams as much as ice cream and sundresses. Lingering anxiety would have us believe that before you give in to sunnier amusements, you must put your intellect through its paces (the better to enjoy afternoons spent snoozing in the park with a copy of the Styles section spread over your face). Whether this is true or we’re just neurotic, there has been some lively commentary on the Nature of Literature this week…we dare say we’d perk up for it even if it was July.
Your Weekly Subway Rant
This time the thing that set Ask Gothamist off was a subway car full of cell phone talkers. Since so much of the city - coffeeshops, restaurants, movie theaters, Central Park - is polluted by wireless yappers, we always appreciated the subway as a sort of underground oasis, free from one-sided conversations and the types of voices that become exponentially louder when talking on the phone.

