Greetings and welcome back to the top of another Tuesday roundup, one with decidedly lofty stories. Could we soon all be looking up at giant suborbital billboards? (Not likely)
Here’s what you need to know today:
Yayoi Kusama’s original Pumpkin washed into the sea in Japan
A massive yellow pumpkin on Naoshima Island in Japan, the first of what would become an iconic series for Japanese sculptor Yayoi Kusama, was washed into the Seto Inland Sea by Typhoon Lupit yesterday. The yellow and black-spotted Pumpkin, installed in 1994 as a public art attraction and later replicated in parks and plazas around the world, was reportedly ripped from its base by dangerous winds and flooding. Several pieces of Pumpkin also broke off after the hollow gourd slammed into the pier. The local Benesse Art Site employees have reportedly wrangled the pumpkin and will work on repairing and reinstalling it.
H/t to Hyperallergic
SpaceX is working to stream satellite ads in space
Is Elon Musk trying to succeed where Pepsi didn’t dare to tread—putting giant ads into orbit that would be visible around the world? No, not exactly. SpaceX and Canadian tech startup Geometric Energy Corporation are reportedly working to put a satellite into space that advertisers can buy shares of. However, rather than cluttering up the sky with enormous signs for Coke or Disney products, the satellite will instead… feature a screen on the front and have a selfie stick filming the screen and livestreaming it back to Earth. Using cryptocurrency, anyone will be able to buy individual pixels on the screen and broadcast their messages (or random clumps of color) around the world.
H/t to The Cut
Frank Ocean opens his first Homer store in New York City
Frank Ocean’s luxury brand Homer opened its first brick-and-mortar location yesterday, sitting at 70-74 Bowery in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Designed by ANY, a partnership between Michael Abel and Nile Greenberg, the store features deeply set display cases carved from aluminum and urethane to highlight the high-end jewelry and silk scarves for sale.
The Cooper Union receives a grant to preserve and display its architecture exhibitions digitally
The Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive has received a $220,000 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to maintain and preserve its exhibition collection, as well as put it online. That includes curatorial files, catalogues, promotional materials, photos, artwork, and other related materials dating back to 1967.
A major art show in Coral Gables, Florida, is canceled after the mayor calls two artists communists
Vince Lago, mayor of Coral Gables, Florida, caused an uproar after accusing artists participating in the city’s Illuminate Coral Gables art show, one Cuban and the other Chinese, of being communist and not denouncing the governments of their home countries enough. After that, Lago threatened to withhold funding from the show, which would have installed site-specific public art across the city, unless the two dropped out. Instead, Illuminate Coral Gables chief curator Lance Fung resigned in protest over being censored and the show has gone on hiatus.
H/t to Artnet News
A Miami condo tower is forced to evacuate after being deemed structurally unsafe
Residents of a condo tower at 5050 NW 7th Street in Miami were forced to evacuate this morning after engineers were not able to complete critical repairs within a 45-day timetable after the building was deemed unsafe. Fearing a repeat of the catastrophe that occurred at Champlain Towers South in the nearby Surfside, the tower’s 130 units were evacuated but residents have complained that many have nowhere else to go and that the city failed to offer temporary housing. It is unclear when repairs will be completed and tenants will be allowed to return home.
H/t to CBS Miami
