Cool or Not Cool: The Smithsonian Selling Your Art Without Permission?

Andrew Theodorakis for the New York Daily News

That's just what happened to Park Slope artist Margaret Bowland, whose oil painting was featured at a Smithsonian exhibition from March 2009-August 2010. The painting, titled "Kenyetta and Brianna," was given a People's Choice Award. At the end of the exhibit, the Smithsonian had difficulty contacting Bowland to let her know that she could retrieve her art. The New York Daily News explains:

"In the final weeks of the show, the Smithsonian sent two emails to Bowland about returning the painting, but the messages were sent to an old email address, according to the complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court." 

When the museum couldn't get a hold of Bowland, they contacted the Klaudia Marr Gallery in New Mexico, where the Smithsonian initially discovered the painting. The gallery told the Smithsonian to ship the painting directly to David Naylor, an interior designer who paid $40,000 for the work. According to Bowland and her lawyer, the New Mexico gallery had no right to sell the painting, and the Smithsonian no right to ship it without her knowledge.

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Watch Out For Those Artful Nip Slips At Tea Lounge

Image by Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal

These days The Wall Street Journal has decided to focus less on economic reportage and more on daring exposés about artistic censorship at Park Slope's own Tea Lounge. Here at FiPS, that news is OUR organic meat and potatoes. We relish nothing more than a good story about bare burgers and bare breasts, and this one falls into the latter. According to the house that the Dow Jones built, some Park Slopers were recently offended by Tea Lounge's forcible acts of artistic modesty.

The Tea Lounge on Union Street, if you didn't already know, is a hot spot for tea, coffee, snacks, mix'n match old furniture and child rearing in all its many forms. Whether you're a mommy, a daddy, a nanny or a manny, you and your child are welcome at Tea Lounge. Want to breast feed your kid child over a latte? Go for it. Want to hang up art depicting the nude human form? Ahhh, sorry. Not so much. 

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Mother + Daughter Lingerie Spread...Hot Or Absolutely Disgusting?

Image Via the Lake & Stars

The Lake and Stars, a New York-based lingerie company owned by fellow Brooklynite Maavan Zilberman, was apparently inspired by a neighborhood mother and daughter pair -- who Zilberman notes were, "always so loving and tender toward each other" -- for their most recent ad campaign. 

Not much shocks me anymore, people. I mean, on my 3 block walk from the subway to my workplace, I'm greeted (pre-coffee) by 3'x 3' cotton underwear-laden crotches of the American Eagle advertising. Then I stare up at sweaty, yet nonchalant shirtless Guess models in mid-hump on the other side of the street. As New Yorkers, we just get used to it. 

But I'll tell you...this ad kinda' grosses me the fuck out.

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Park Slope Art gallery launches its member show

VIA Betty Blade/Flickr

Fellow artsy Slopers, if you step out tonight in this monsoon, check out the nabe's hole-in-the-wall 440 Gallery. The co-op gallery is kicking off the season with a member based exhibit.

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COOL Brooklyn ARTIST ALERT: Linda Zacks

Linda Zacks' work is self-described as "part poetry, part paint, part zip and zoom." Once the Design Director at VH1, this local artist now works solo, creating mixed media work for big-name clients like Sony, Newport Beach Film Festival and INQ Mobile, just to name a few. Her work is bold and beautiful, and manages to look both haphazard and deliberate at the same time. Last year she was featured in Photoshop User Magazine where she confessed her love for scanning as many objects as she can get her hands on (including ink-soaked paper towels, rusty jar lids and her own dog), which she then throws into Photoshop, which is used as "a kind of virtual glue stick." I recently had a chat with Linda, a Brooklyn rez who loves working with found materials and takes her pooch to Park Slope's favorite pet hospital, Animal Kind. 

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Fancy in Park Slope: We're Getting A Hat Store!

Photo via Goorin BrothersWho says Park Slope lacks fanciness and style?

Well, usually me.

If you're a fancy hat-loving person, you'll be happy to hear that San Francisco-based hat company, Goorin Brothers, is coming to our fair neighborhood this Fall!

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iPhone Sketch'd In Park Slope

Park Slope rez Eric Molinsky does these kickass iPhone subway sketches, and was featured in the NYT last weekend. Cool!

If you see any sketches of a scowling bitch holding an iPad standing on the Q train (CAUSE YOU NEVER EVER EVER get a motherfuckin seat on the Q), its probs me.