The 15 Weirdest and Wildest Art Stories of 2014

From Jordan Wolfson's sexy robot to Dustin Yellin in the buff.

Lena Marquise and the "Body as Commodity" installation. Photo: Nate "Igor" Smith/drivenbyboredom.com
Etsy/Dawn Ash Art Studio

Etsy/Dawn Ash Art Studio

1. A few weeks ago at Art Basel in Miami Beach, hip-hop star Usher took a quick break from the nonstop glamour to charge his phone inside a woman’s vagina.

2. There was a moment in 2014 when the selfie obsession reached its maximum capacity, and that moment was definitely when an Italian student smashed an ancient Greek statue as he attempted to take a selfie with it. Perhaps the most upsetting part is that he didn’t even get the damn picture.

3. “Doing dumb things with sculptures” was apparently a trend this year. Firefighters had to free a US student from inside a 32-pound marble vagina that he willingly climbed into while on a class trip to Germany.

4. An artist actually tried to sell “invisible art.” It may have been a joke? We’re honestly still unclear.

5. Jordan Wolfson created a dark and terrifying animatronic doll that probably gave lots of people nightmares about sexy blonde women in witch masks.

6. A bunch of 4Chan Internet trolls bidded up a piece of “conceptual art” by “Anonymous” on Ebay to the absurd price of just over $90,000. The sale probably wasn’t legit, and the whole thing didn’t really say much that Marcel Duchamp didn’t articulate a thousand times better, but hey, that’s 4Chan for you.

7. Bass fishing art was a thing that a lot of people, for whatever reason, wanted to hang in their homes.

8. An anonymous Instagrammer using the handle @icallb, well, “called b” on the art world. Targets included the MoMA, Richard Phillips, Klaus Biesenbach, and Artforum. Mock on, you fearless person behind a computer screen!

9. Dustin Yellin took his bottoms off (and we mean off) at a party to celebrate Creative Time. Oh wait, then he did it again (on Santa’s lap, no less) at ArtList’s Christmas carnival. Look out, Dustin: one more time and it stops being newsworthy.

10. Cecilia Giménez, the Spanish art restorer of “Beast Jesus” fame, starred in a music video by a sympathetic singer who played the role of Jesus, come to life to thank the woman for her charitable, if poorly-executed, action.

11. James Franco painted his buddy Seth Rogen naked. They were hung in a gallery. People came to see them. Some were probably even purchased.

12. Two inept thieves in Houston botched an attempted art heist so badly (as in, couldn’t even fit the painting through the door) that security guards continued to watch and laugh before calling the police.

13. Someone created a “selfie stick” (possibly to help avoid issues like #2), and we actually reported on it.

14. Two artists not only crafted an extremely off putting suit out of chicken skins, they took it to the next level and filmed an exercise video while wearing it. Watching said video is akin to what I imagine a bad acid trip to be.

15. A bunch of dudes on Tinder tried to use art to get laid. Okay, so maybe this one actually isn’t all that crazy in the grand scheme of the things men will do for a roll in the hay.


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