No, Marcel Duchamp has not risen from the grave to comment on pop culture.  It is the work of Hanksy, a pun-obsessed street artist who is taking the city by storm.

A self-proclaimed "Street Fartist" who has been labeled the "Weird Al" of Street Art for his irreverent riffs on pop culture, Hanksy started out two years ago combining Banksy-like street art with Tom Hanks puns (Get it?!) Now, his punny celebrity repertoire has expanded beyond the Hanksian, targeting every corner of the zeitgeist from Iron Man to Arrested Development.

You may have spotted his work around the city, including pieces such as “Pie Hard” (Bruce Willis holding a stack of Pies,) “Stark and Recreation,” (Aziz Ansari’s head in Iron Man’s suit), "Ferrell Cats" (Will Ferrell’s face on cats), "Bi-Curious George" (Clooney in a monkey costume holding a rather phallic banana) and "Ghost-Buster Bluth"–you get the idea.

And new work is cropping up all the time in the city's nooks and crannies.

"Literally every day he’ll send me some stupid pun that he thought of just on the fly. He's always thinking of new work," said his manager Brandon Rosenblatt.

After two sold out exhibits at New York’s Krause Gallery, Hanksy has taken to L.A. to promote his upcoming solo exhibition at Gallery 1988 , which opens May 24^th. In addition to teasing the city with a range of murals, he even left L.A. another porcelain portrait, the precursor to Gotham's own Gatspee: featuring James Franco as “The Whizard of Oz.”

"While it's obvious I find bathroom humor amusing because you know, it's child-like and awesome, I actually label myself a 'fartist' as a soft reminder to myself and those around me," explained Hanksy. "I'm not taking myself too seriously and they shouldn't either."

And having emblazoned Leo's face on the crapper doesn't mean that he is pooh-poohing the real thing—rather, unlike our own Rex Reed, Hanksy is stoked to see Gatsby move from the toilet bowl to the Silver Screen (although for all his cultural cred, we're not sure that he knows what the phrase "YOLO" means).

"I've read the book more than a few times, so I'm excited to see Luhrmann's adaptation," said Hanksy. "Although I'm still scratching my head over the fact that it's in 3D. I mean, flappers and the Jazz Age all up in the audience's business? Fitzgerald would be like, #YOLO am I right Zelda?"

(Images from Hanksy).

"Bi-Curious George" (Tomhanksy.tumblr.com)

With tongue placed firmly in cheek, New York's street artist Hanksy has built a career out of poking fun at the self-serious subversives in the gallery graffiti circuit. Even his name is a satirical homage to the British Banksy, with Hanksy being a shortened tag for "Tom Hanksy."

Picking subjects more pop than political, Hanksy has focused his art on animals and celebrity mash-ups: like the hilarious Ferrell Cats, or the pun-y "Pie Hard" stencil in Bushwick.

If Banksy's monkeys are telling us, "Laugh now, because one day we'll be in charge," than Hanksy's message might be better summarized as, "Laugh now, because this is funny."

His latest work uploaded several hours ago on his Tumblr, might not have everyone chuckling. Found on the corner of Orchard and Ludlow, Hanksy's new piece shows a monkey with the face of George Clooney eating a banana. Above the graffiti is the phrase "Bi-Curious George."

Word travels fast: the photo has already been picked up by The Huffington Post, which is quick to point out that Hanksy (who is represented by the Krause Gallery) has already clarified on Twitter that his piece was not meant as a homophobic knock against the perennial bachelor.
(The Inception layers of word play don't stop there: Hanksy's listed alias on Twitter--"Christopher Lee Rios"--was the real name of Puerto-Rican rapper "Big Pun," who died in 2000.)

Plus, we all know how much George Clooney loves a good prank(sy) himself.

The cops bagged him. (Courtesy Louis Lim)

It was the glowing plastic bag seen round the world.

Over the weekend, Takeshi Miyakawa was arrest for his clever I [heart] NY shopping bag installation, which was mistaken for a bomb by the police on two occasions, the first of which shut down Bedford Avenue.

Rather than releasing Mr. Miyakawa on $250,000 bail Sunday morning, as the Kings County District Attorney recommended, the presiding judge at his arraignment ordered him remanded into custody for mental evaluation, which could keep him behind bars for up to a month.

Today, another Brooklyn judge will decide whether or not Mr. Miyakawa, who has been in prison for almost five days now despite reports of his cooperation, can go free.The hearing is expected at 2:30 p.m. The Observer will be in the courtroom, live tweeting the proceedings. Look for #freetakeshi for updates. (Not passing judgment, it's just that hashtag already exists, and you have to admit it has a nice ring to it.)

"Hopefully, he'll be getting out without bail on his own recognizance, given what's happened so far," Louis Lim, a friend and mentee of the designer, told The Observer. "But that's up to the prosecution and the judge. We just want to see him set free, bail or no bail."

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Red alert. (Courtesy Louis Lim)

Mr. Miyakawa planting one of his "bombs."

Plastic shopping bags, the city's dandruff, get stuck in trees and wrapped around light poles all the time.

Rarely do they cause a bomb scare.

But that is what happened on Friday morning, shortly after 10:30 a.m. According to Gothamist, someone had simply called 311 to complain about a bag a gentleman had recently deposited into a tree on Beford Avenue and inquire about its removal.The 311 dispatcher, apparently spooked by the description of an installation by Brooklyn designer Takeshi Miyakawa—an I [heart] NY plastic shopping bag with a wire hanging out—directed the annoyed neighbor to call 911.

The cops showed up, then the fire department, the the bomb squad, which shut down Bedford from North Fourth Street to North Seventh Street for two hours.

Each May for New York Design Week, Mr. Miyakawa has made various installations throughout  Manhattan and Brooklyn to coincide with the annual festivities, including a floating chair that, like the bags, glowed. It was a spirited—if unsanctioned, but also generally harmless—effort. The installations had gained a modicum of notoriety within the art and design communities, but little notice elsewhere. This year, the work got him thrown in jail, for up to a month, if not longer.

“It’s his way of raising awareness for design week," Louis Lim said yesterday of Mr. Miyakawa, his friend and mentor. "He felt there was no real public spirit for design week, like there is in Milan, or Paris for fashion week, where it’s an event and everyone is excited.”

People certainly got excited over the weekend, but certainly not in the way Mr. Miyakawa intended.

Twelve hours after the incident on Bedford Ave, around 2 a.m., Mr. Miyakawa, apparently ignorant of the scene he had caused earlier in the day, was hanging another of his installations from a light post in Greenpoint, at the corner of Bedford and Lorimer, across from McCarren Park. Those ominous wires connected to a small LED packet that would illuminate the bag. "It was his way of expressing love for the city and for design," Mr. Lim said.

The cops, however, did not love it, and arrested Mr. Miyakawa. He was charged with two counts each—one for the morning incident, one for the night time—of reckless endangerment in the first degree, placing a false bomb or hazardous material in the first degree, placing a false bomb or hazardous material in the second degree, reckless endangerment in the second degree and criminal nuisance in the second degree.

Mr. Miyakawa was arraigned on Sunday morning, when Brooklyn Judge Martin Murphy rejected a $250,000 bond offer from the district attorney's office and remanded him to custody for a psychiatric evaluation of up to 30 days. Police report that Mr. Miyakawa was cooperative and there was no imminent danger presented by his installation. The judge made no comment as to his orders, according to those present for the arraignment.

It is probably the most notable artistic use of a an I [heart] NY shopping bag since Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls, wherein one of the characters suffocates himself with one.

"This was not a guy who wanted to blow anyone up," Mr. Miyakawa's attorney, Deborah Blum, said of her client. She filed a writ of habeus corpus today, hoping for her clients hasty release, but does not expect any action at least until tomorrow. Until that time, Mr. Miyakawa, who is well known for the furniture he makes out of a Greenpoint studio, as well as for making models for noted architect Rafael Viñoly, will be locked away in Rikers.

"He did this even with all the negative energy in the city," Mr. Lim said. "It was his way of trying to keep us from being beaten down."

Last week, French street artist Kidult took a fire extinguisher full of pink paint, and unleashed it on Marc Jacobs' SoHo boutique last week, painting the word "ART" over the store. Marc Jacobs had some fun with it on social media, and then, commodtized the ostensible political message by turning a photo of his painted store—which is vandalism or art, depending on how you see it—into a $700 T-Shirt, with the caption "Art by Art Jacobs." Kidult, the artist, was pissed, and made it known.

Jacobs may have the pricier shirt, and may in fact be fairly credited with the cannier move in this little battle, but Kidult has now fired back with a shirt of his own.

It shows the artist, in the act of tagging up the Marc Jacobs store.

And it is, to be fair, pretty great:

Kidult Tweeted out a picture of the shirt to the Marc Jacobs International account, poetry in motion, offering up his new wares: "@marcjacobsintl u got the one for the dumb ass, i got the one for the people, Real power is people ..."

Exclusive news of the shirt—which is on sale at Kidult's website—originally appeared on graffiti blog 12oz Prophet. If you'll remember correctly, Marc Jacobs' shirt (below) retailed for around $700.

Kidult will apparently be selling his for about $10.

Maybe had Jacobs used his brand equity to sell a bunch of "Art Jacobs" shirts at $10 a pop, Kidult would've been corned, and his latest play might not be as crafty as it is. Fact is, this image is kind of wonderful, and is the kind of thing one could easily picture becoming a symbol of whatever retail rebellion Kidult is speaking to, or simply, aspiring street artists (or their fanboys who appropriate for the sake of fashion).

Given the choice between the two shirts—or at the very least, the pricepoint—we might be inclined to buy Kidult's shirt. To that effect, we may have spoken too soon: Marc Jacobs might've just been outplayed.

PREVIOUSLY:

Marc Jacobs Store Vandalized by Graffiti Artist, Whose Graffiti Was Then Appropriated by Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs vs. The Graffiti Artist, Round 2: When Jacobs Turns Vandalized Store Into $680 Shirt
Marc Jacobs vs. The Street Artist, Round 3: The Mannequins Get Involved

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Needless to say, Kidult is pissed.

He recently fired off a few unhappy Tweets to let the world and his followers know how he feels about Marc Jacobs' appropriation of his art:

Anyone in SoHo this weekend who happened to stroll by the Mercer Street boutique would've spotted this in the window:

The Observer contacted a press representative for Marc Jacobs to ask: Does Mr. Jacobs himself know about all of this? Was he involved in any of the direct decision-making? Have they sold any of the shirts? And finally, who the hell is running their Twitter feed, and have they been promoted over the last two weeks? The fashion label has yet to return a request for comment.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

As a crew cleaned it up the next morning and Kidult took to Twitter to brag, Marc Jacobs and his canny reps turned the stunt on its head, capitalizing on the graffiti artist's own work to the benefit of their own marketing: By Tweeting it out as "Art by Art Jacobs" and Instagramming an 'artsy' picture of it. Kidult, clearly on the scene, tried to make his presence known, but it was too late: Jacobs had won that one.

By the social media tape, onlookers were amused.

A few graffiti purists were definitely pissed at the scene of a fashion label managing to turn ostensibly subversive and damaging art on its head. Some simply didn't understand the entire thing (like this stuffy French guy):

He made a T-Shirt of the entire episode.

The T-Shirt is simply the picture that appeared on Twitter, with the same caption, on a pink shirt.

It looks like this:

Conclusion:

• Provocations of Marc Jacobs will not go unanswered.
• While it is inherently difficult to root for capitalist enterprises, any artist trying to subvert something through destruction for attention (such as Kidult clearly does) is difficult to root for as well.
• Especially when the response is as crafty, canny, and genuinely more artful than the provocation it's answering.

Jacobs, in this situation, has made one hell of a commentary about the absurd commoditization that some street art has yielded, and how easily ostensibly subversive art can actually be subverted, facile as it so often is, and it may be the best take on the matter since Exit Through The Gift Shop.

In short: Marc Jacobs wins.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Romney on the Bowery. (Matt Chaban)

The poster, in situ. (Matt Chaban)

Making our way along the Bowery yesterday, The Observer happened by 190 Bowery, the former Germania Bank building and last bastion of graffiti and grit on the now tony thoroughfare.

There, next to the Swoons and spray can scrawls, we noticed perhaps the most unusual campaign poster yet seen for Mitt Romney.

There is his loyal friend, Seamus, strapped to the roof of the family's station wagon, just as everyone remembers. A soothing campaign message is tagged on the back of the car, as well, showing there is the possibility for Governor Romney to appeal to an urban demographic.

Good to know that Barack Obama is not the only presidential candidate to have secured the vote of the wheat paste set.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

We thought perhaps it could be the work of well-known street artist Olek, who among other infamous acts stitched up the Wall Street bull last Christmas. The answer is sweeter—both in the gnarly and precious sense—than that. As this YouTube video explains, it is the work of two women who own the shop next door, Domus.

There is an Olek connection—they were inspired by the prolific knitter—but what is even more impressive is they did not know how to crochet until they decided to undertake the project. Which, we might add, has been up for a few months now, with the sad fact that someone's stolen the butterfly once sewn on.

The Observer needs to look around more on the rare occasions we peel ourselves away from the computer.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

70/640

Felix Morelo crouched in Union Square on his hands and knees on Sunday morning at 10:30, as passersby prepared for the Pride festival that would provide hours of marriage-themed glee. Chalk in hand, he scrawled: “I WILL ATTEMPT A TRAIL OF CHALK FACES AROUND THE PARK. (DONATIONS ARE COOL)”

By 3 p.m., when the park ranger asked him to stop due to heavy pedestrian traffic, Morelo had created a line of 640 cartoon faces. Each filled its own hexagonal ground tile, simple circular caricatures differing one from the other in at least one aspect (though Morelo jokes that “even God repeats himself"), and together they reached almost halfway around the block.

Skinny and weathered, with curly dark hair, Morelo said he moved to New York from Colombia at the age of 11, and graduated from Parson’s in 1990. Now 39, he still hasn’t felt the success he hoped to achieve as an artist.

“I may not be getting shows but I want to do something big before I go, not just feel like a failure, you know. It’s about pride. It's like fuck it, I’m just as good,” he said. “I want to be known in a larger scope. It’s like letting them know that I’m here.”

Hence the faces: his sidewalk art, which began about two or three years ago pushing both body and mind to their limits. Morelo drew his record 2,056 faces during a marathon 13-hour session that announced his move to Brooklyn by covering it in his doodles. By the end of the endeavor, he said his hand was shaking and he was hallucinating, but believing that numbers are the way to attract attention, he continues to draw as many faces as he can. Almost two weeks ago, he covered a park in Queens with 1,160.

“I feel like artists have the chance to climb the social ladder. It gives you access,” Morelo said, while admitting some of his art is fueled by anger at his current situation. “By doing these faces… I still have to force myself to be strong, you know, physically and mentally.”

From donations Sunday, Morelo made about $75 (some of which was spent to take his girlfriend out for $2 falafel). Between donations such as these, occasional art sales, unemployment checks and food stamps, Morelo says he gets by, but he has gone through two short periods of homelessness. (Morelo also used to give “Free Advice” in Union Square on everything spanning from discontent in jobs to trouble in relationships, but stopped doing so after getting a ticket for accepting money without having a permit.)

In addition to faces, Morelo also draws "bad luck" and "good luck" spots – circles enclosing one phrase or the other in all caps – representing his philosophy that life is a balance. Believing street art allows everyone to be a judge of his work (provided they don’t just step on it), he hopes one day to penetrate the art world and find a gallery home. Some of his work is currently being featured as part of the annual biennial for the Museo del Barrio, whose curator he met while drawing on the subway.

If he ultimately succeeds, Morel says he won’t mind the failures he has endured. But if he doesn’t, he said he would cover the Earth with his bad luck spots forever.

In the meantime, he invited The Observer to his birthday party, under the stipulation that we bring a present. Five bucks, he said, would suffice.