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Proving that there’s never any shortage of excitement in the small and entertaining world of New York City street art, some super-meta conceptual type decided to paste a fake New Yorker critique about street art on the side of some building in Brooklyn. The prankster even attributed the “review” to the magazine’s art critic, Peter Schjeldahl.And now, Christoph Niemann the Great on his subway-obsessed kids. If this doesn’t become a children’s book soon, the numberless Arthurs and Gustavs of the five boroughs will have a tantrum that will stop the system in its tracks.
I’m all for spoofing mainstream media, but, sadly, this piece doesn’t live up to its promise. For one, anybody who is gonna spoof the New Yorker better be able to deliver on the turn-of-phrase. This does not. (Sample sentence: “There is no sacrifice to putting this work on the street. That’s the street game, duh.”) On the content side, things don’t fare too well either. Someone risked arrest to let us know that there’s a visual kinship between the work of Swoon, Gaia and Elbow-Toe.
I was very excited, however, to see that a long-time New Yorker staple—the European beret advert, at bottom right—made it into the piece. I like to believe that everyone who works for the New Yorker wears one of these when they write.