Sometimes a product doesn’t need a clever explanation — it just needs a name that makes you say OMG! Case in point: Fuckin’ Soap by Rude Dude Fragrances. Spotted in the wild at NY Now, this bar of soap comes in a surprisingly glam package: a black box with silver lettering and silver borders that gives it a sleek, almost luxurious look. It reminds of a matchbook you’d find in a downtown nightclub back in the eighties. Then you notice the name. Fuckin Soap. The bar itself carries the same unapologetic name, embossed right across the front. It’s soap, it’s irreverent, it’s a little bit glam, and it gets the job done. Most importantly, it exists!
What if you could actually see what was going on inside someone’s head? Erwin Wurm offers his own wonderfully strange answer with It’s Not Me, It’s Not You (Mind Bubbles), a 2025 sculpture that was part of the artist’s Double Dream exhibit at Lehmann Maupin.
To me, the sculpture looks like a character from some surreal cartoon: A cloud head / body perched atop pair of extremely long, skinny legs that bend awkwardly beneath the enormous, amorphous form. The entire figure is rendered in a soft, dreamy pale blue right down to its little lace-up boots. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Erwin Wurm, It’s Not Me, It’s Not You (Mind Bubbles)→
There are some things in life that make perfect sense, and then there is Banana Hands. This 500-piece jigsaw puzzle from Piecework Puzzles features a wonderfully surreal photograph of what appears to be a person sitting at a table reading a book, surrounded by bananas and fruit. But in place of a head, they have a giant heart-shaped leaf (presumably a banana leaf). And their hands? Well, they’re bananas. Obviously. Continue reading Yes, It Exists: Banana Hands By Piecework Puzzles→
While wandering through the Chelsea Gallery district recently, I stopped by Pace Gallery on West 25th Street and headed up to the outdoor terrace. There, overlooking the eastern skyline with the Hudson River just beyond, I encountered a remarkable sculpture of two young men standing together in a close embrace, while each man wears a virtual reality headst. Call this a different kind of public art!
Entitled Close, this 2025 sculpture is by the Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, and it is carved entirely from white marble. At more than five feet tall, the figures are life-size enough to feel like actual people sharing an intimate moment, which makes the VR headsets all the more intriguing.
When Geoffrey was in town recently for his annual visit, we did our usual whirlwind tour of art museums in Manhattan and beyond. Our stop at the New Museumwas my first visit since it reopened in March after being closed for two years during its massive expansion. And boy, was I surprised when I saw the first public art commission greeting visitors in the museum’s exterior plaza. I knew immediately it had to be the work of Sarah Lucas. Because if you know, you know.
The sculpture, VENUS VICTORIA (2026) by the British artist is the inaugural public-art commission for the museum’s new outdoor plaza at Bowery and Prince Street. Hello!
