#Willy Wonka Event Was A Publicity Stunt

[msclaritea]

Fuck ALL of this total bullshit. So...let me get this straight: A BRIT ran what should be an embarrassing scam, pissed off parents, made small children cry and the film industry immediately gets rolling, to make momey from it. Call me crazy but that HAD to be a whole ass stunt. Fortnite already has a rendition out. Trolls online are already calling it the kids version of the Fyre Festival. They set this up. What a bunch of depraved, Satanic bullshit!

Fortnite is owned by Tim Sweeney, Sony, Chinese company Tencent and Danish Kirkbi. In addition, their mole, Kneon at Clownfish is talking nonstop about this 'gaffe' like it's some big deal. The obvious marker of being a plant is his obsessive hate towards Disney. In addition, you don't hear shit from the companies who now own Dahl's IP about how disgusting this was. But we're getting a stupid HORROR film based on this. One of these days, maybe people will get what Timothy Chalamet is being used for.

[pilferingapples]

I got so into the joy of Boops I didn't even check my mail and almost MISSED this Important Announcement yesterday!! Article under cut in case they take it down:

The producer of Willy’s Chocolate Experience has announced that the Roald Dahl rip-off will transfer to Broadway, with an opening-night performance slated for April 25 at 11pm — just in time for Tony Awards consideration.

The interactive show made international headlines in February when it played a warehouse in Glasgow. Lured by AI-generated images of a fantastical candy wonderland, Scottish ticket-buyers plunked down £35 each to enter the workshop of “Willy McDuff,” a whimsical chocolatier assisted by green-haired “Wonkidoodles” and haunted by “The Unknown,” a rival candy-maker who inhabits the walls of the factory.

Derided as “Willy Wonka’s Meth Lab,” the immersive production fell far short of the expectations set by marketing material, with actors struggling to bring coherence to a script that was obviously authored by ChatGPT, on a set that looked like a daycare on Riker’s Island. An audience revolt prematurely ended the run, with several ticket-buyers demanding refunds from the event’s visibly frazzled organizer.

“We learned so much from our out-of-town tryout,” the upbeat producer told TheaterMania, reframing the whole thing as a brilliant publicity stunt.

“I’ve been closely collaborating with our script doctor, Goog LeGemini, and I think we’ve solved the major problem of The Unknown being too…unknown. She is now an unhoused victim of Willy’s gentrification, a socially relevant backstory that I think makes for a much richer narrative. That was all the Glasgow run was missing, really.”

TheaterMania can exclusively reveal that Willy’s Chocolate Experience will play the defunct McDonald’s on 42nd Street next to the New Amsterdam Theatre. “It’s a perfect opportunity to snag tourists unable to get into Aladdin,” the producer enthused. “They might feel a little disappointed at first, but just wait until they get a load of our show.”

While the shuttered 42nd Street McDonald’s has not previously been considered a Broadway house, our investigations revealed that a certain former Broadway League president quietly elevated the venue on February 15 through an obscure administrative procedure that has gone unnoticed by the theatrical press until now.

“Between Here Lies Love and the revival of Cabaret, it’s clear that producers are seeking more versatile venues,” said the ex-prez when reached for comment, “and I can think of no better space for immersive shows than this hamburger palace with a theatrical marquee. You’re welcome, Broadway.”

Readers interested in a deeper dive should return to TheaterMania on Friday, when our desperate Story of the Week columnist will have banged out 2,000 words about why this is happening and how it will have absolutely no impact on this year’s Tony Awards.

Until then, we wish you a very happy April Fools’ Day.

[aion-rsa]

Topps Project 2020: How Pop Art Changed Sports Cards

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With a new decade approaching, Topps unveiled grand plans for an ambitious and unconventional series of baseball cards called Topps Project 2020, a one-of-a-kind trading card event that combined contemporary art and iconic baseball cards. 

The concept was simple enough: 20 artists are reimagining 20 iconic baseball rookie cards—Griffey, Mays, Robinson, Koufax, and Clemente, to name only a few—for a complete set of 400 cards to be released over the course of 2020. Each artist brings a unique flavor to the mix. Ben Baller added bling to the Ichiro 2001. King Saladeen was inspired by New York street art when he crafted his 1992 Derek Jeter card. Fucci is going faceless. And JK5 has Mike Trout shooting lasers out of his eyes, in case you had any doubt that the Angels outfielder wasn’t Superman.  

To market the project, the trading card manufacturer lined up year-long promotional events and ballpark exclusives to coincide with the Major League Baseball season. Then the pandemic struck and the company was forced to ease into a virtual-only rollout of Topps Project 2020. 

The stunted publicity tour was a curveball, but all other metrics point to Topps Project 2020 being the company’s breakout MVP during a season in which no baseball, to date, is being played. Even the MVP metaphor falls short of capturing how enthusiastic the company, card collectors, and newcomers to the sports hobby are about Topps Project 2020. “We’ve never seen anything like it before at Topps,” Topps Global Director of E-commerce Jeff Heckman tells Den of Geek. He calls the event “a landmark” for the company even though they’re only halfway through releasing the full set. 

The print runs have wildly varied due to the project’s print-on-demand release structure (which we’ll explain in more detail below). Thanks in part to a secondary market that swelled as awareness grew, the project peaked with Keith Shore’s Ken Griffey Jr. card, currently the highest print run at 99,177. At a single card price of $19.99… you do the math. The series has been a massive financial windfall for Topps. Beckman tells us the price point was a risk, but they felt people would respond to a premium product. So far, Topps Project 2020 has widely outpaced their own internal expectations. “We’re extremely excited about the success of Project 2020,” he says. 

Through our ongoing partnership with eBay, we have an exclusive look at the key facts, best-selling artists, hottest cards, and holy grail 1/1s that have taken the sports hobby by storm this year. Let’s dive in… 

How does Topps Project 2020 work? 

Welcome to the modern age—wax packs, boxes, and cases are nowhere to be found for Topps Project 2020, instead Topps relies on a print-on-demand release model. What exactly does that mean? Each weekday, two cards are released exclusively through Topps.com for a 48 hour window. The final print run is based on how many people purchase cards in that short amount of time. Hence why we’ve seen dramatically different print runs—from Tyson Beck’s Dwight Gooden at 1,065 to Keith Shore’s Ken Griffey Jr. at 99,177. 

There are a few levels to collecting Topps Project 2020. Upon release, you can buy a single card for $19.99. The price point drops if you’re purchasing multiples. One card in the print run will randomly be a 1/1 gold frame card. This is your Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. Current listings on eBay for these gold frames include Matt Taylor’s Frank Thomas starting at $4,500 and Keith Shore’s Don Mattingly at $8,000. 

Topps is also selling silver framed Artist Proof cards, numbered to 20. They retail for $299.00.  These sell out almost immediately and command extremely high resale value. 

The Project 2020 artists have put their own extras and exclusives into the market. Some artists are offering to sign cards via their personal websites for an additional fee; Sophia Chang included a bonus custom art baseball with her Rickey Henderson signatures. Others are creating their own spinoff cards, including Tyson Beck who is working on a basketball card project. But Ben Baller takes the cake so far with his extra incentives: for his Derek Jeter release, he offered a randomly inserted gold diamond No. 2 chain as well as 10 on-card autographs. 

The beauty of the product is the various ways to collect. You can collect all 20 players from one artist. You can collect all 20 artist cards of a single player. You can mix and match based on the artwork or players you fancy. You can seek the autographs or special extras from the artist’s own secondary market through their websites or social media—Blake Jamieson in particular has been active in promoting the project though livestreams. And if you want to own the complete set but came in late to the game, prepare to take out a small business loan. With the year only halfway over, Topps Project 2020 may continue to evolve in unexpected ways. 

Topps Project 2020 Checklist: Which Iconic Rookie Cards Made The Roster?

Below are the players who will have their rookie card redesigned by Topps Project 2020 artists. (original release date in parenthesis) 

Willie Mays (1952)

Jackie Robinson (1952) 

Ted Williams (1954) 

Roberto Clemente (1955)

Sandy Koufax (1955)

Bob Gibson (1959)

Nolan Ryan (1969)

George Brett (1975)

Rickey Henderson (1980)

Cal Ripken (1982)

Tony Gwynn (1983)

Don Mattingly (1984)

Dwight Gooden (1985)

Mark McGwire (1987)

Ken Griffey Jr. (1989)

Frank Thomas (1990)

Mariano Rivera (1992)

Derek Jeter (1992)

Ichiro (2001)

Mike Trout (2011)

Who Are The Topps Project 2020 Artists?

Ben Baller

Keith Shore

Don C

Blake Jamieson

Joshua Vides

Gregory Siff

JK5

Andrew Thiele

Oldmanalan

Efdot

Mister Cartoon

Naturel

Jacob Rochester

Fucci

Ermsy

Matt Taylor

King Saaladeen

Tyson Beck

Sophia Chang

Grotesk

Topps Project 20202 Top Sellers

To date, based on average print runs, the top three selling artists for Project 2020 are Ben Baller, Keith Shore, and Don C. CRT Cards has put together a comprehensive statistical guide for top performing artists and players during the project, as well as secondary market data. The top three players to date, based on total print run, are Mike Trout, Derek Jeter, and Ken Griffey Jr. 

Three largest print runs: 

Keith Shore’s Ken Griffey Jr. at 99,177

Blake Jameison’s Mike Trout at 74,862

Joshua Vides’s Nolan Ryan at 64,629

Three lowest print runs: 

Tyson Beck’s Dwight Gooden at 1,065

Joshua Vides’s Dwight Gooden at 1,101

Oldmanalan’s Mariano Rivera at 1,127

Topps Project 2020 Secondary Market 

As the project gained more attention, the prices on the secondary market exploded. The earlier cards, with lower print runs, saw huge increases in resale value. Topps Project 2020 had a major burst in secondary market interest in March, April, and peaked in May. Courtesy of eBay, here are some key numbers to illustrate how hot these cards are: 

*According to eBay search and sales data from March 1, 2020 to May 28, 2020

Searches for “Topps Project 2020” jumped over 600% from April to May 2020. 

As of May 28, there were 71,917 Topps Project 2020 listings sold.

Sales for Topps Project 2020 increased 510% from April to May 2020. 

The average sale price for Topps Project 2020 cards increased by 77% from April to May 2020. 

Top 10 Topps Project 2020 items by price

1.      Topps Project 2020 Lot #1-10 Box- $14,000

2.      Topps Project 2020 Set Lot#21-40- $13,400

3.      Topps Project 2020 Set Lot #1-50- $12,100

4.      Topps Project 2020 33 Card Bundle- $12,000

5.      Topps Project 2020 Set Lot #1-10 – $9,995

6.      Topps Project 2020 Card #1 2001 Ichiro Suzuki by Ben Baller- $9,500

7.      Topps Project 2020 #1 Ichiro Suzuki by Ben Baller- $8,499  

8.      Topps Project 2020 Set Lot  #1-10- $8,000

9.      2020 Topps Project 2020 #4 Mike Trout – $7,750

10.  Topps Project 2020 Set Lot Cards: #3-7, #9-44, #47-50 – $7,500

Topps Project 2020 Highest Selling Cards on eBay

As of 6/30: 

BEN BALLER MIKE TROUT TOPPS PROJECT 2020 ERROR AUTOGRAPH CARD 1/1 – $10,300

ARTIST PROOF #/20 – Topps Project 2020 – Ichiro Suzuki – Card #1 by Ben Baller – $10,000

2020 Topps Project 2020 #4 Mike Trout – Ermsy GOLD FRAME 1/1 – WOWW – GRAIL!!! – $7,750

Topps Project 2020 #1B Nolan Ryan HOF Mets Art By Blake Jamieson 1969 Retro 1/1 – $6,350

Topps PROJECT 2020 Willie Mays 1952 By Efdot GOLD FRAME 1/1 Card #27 Giants -$6,136

Topps Project 2020 Archive and More Resources

Check out the full Topps Project 2020 archive here. On Twitter, an unofficial Project 2020 Information account is keeping fans of the project up to date on new releases on Topps as well as flagging some of the best cards hitting eBay. As collectors know, Beckett is typically a top resource for all things sports cards. They’ve put together their own guide which you can read here. We also recommend ESPN’s feature on the project for more background.

The post Topps Project 2020: How Pop Art Changed Sports Cards appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[biofunmy]

Art Basel Miami, Where Big Money Meets Bigger Money

MIAMI BEACH — As the global art world descends on South Florida for next week’s Art Basel fair, which is celebrating its 17th anniversary, it’s worth remembering how truly small the art world once was.

As late as the 1980s, you could fit contemporary art’s A-list players all in one room. And the room in question often belonged to the prominent collectors Don and Mera Rubell — inside their Manhattan townhouse, then the de facto after-party venue for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s career-launching biennials. “We knew every collector in the world then,” Don Rubell recalled with a chuckle. “Ninety percent of them were in New York or Germany.”

Richard Prince was a fresh arrival to the Rubells’ after-party in 1985, having made his biennial debut that year with his signature photo appropriations. He would later write of his nervous excitement at threading his way into their gathering, past the reigning enfant terrible Robert Mapplethorpe, and spying his own artwork there. “It was the first time I’d ever seen anything of mine hung on someone else’s wall,” an awed Mr. Prince remembered. “I was still an outsider but that evening I felt, if only for a moment, part of another family.”

That family of artists, museum directors, curators and collectors is now exponentially larger, with far more money, and far more rungs of status up for grabs. But the Rubells are just as keen on occupying its center stage as they were in 1993, when they purchased a 40,000-square-foot warehouse for their growing art collection in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami. They later became instrumental in wooing the Swiss-based Art Basel fair to begin a Miami edition.

Now they have enlarged the showcase for their 7,200 artworks. Opening Dec. 4, the Rubell Family Collection, rechristened the Rubell Museum, fills a 100,000-square-foot campus just west, in the new art neighborhood of Allapattah — a gritty mix of warehouses, hospitals and modest homes. The Annabelle Selldorf-designed complex includes a restaurant, bookstore, event space, outdoor garden, and not least, contemporary art holdings that overshadow that of any other South Florida institution.

Allapattah’s cheaper real estate beckoned: The Rubells bought their new museum’s lot for $4 million, and purchased a similarly sized lot across the street for $8.6 million. Several heavy-hitting developers have also moved into Allapattah, mirroring a pattern of gentrification that saw property values skyrocket in Wynwood (and forced artists to move out). While Mrs. Rubell insisted this move wasn’t simply about flipping properties, she admitted “the appreciated value of the Wynwood space is why we can now do all this.” Valued by Miami-Dade County at $12 million, its planned sale is likely to fetch upward of twice that.

The family still runs the same nonprofit organization to exhibit their collection, which remains open to the public five days a week. So why now call it a museum? Is it about bragging rights? “It’s about what we want to step up to,” Mrs. Rubell said. “I meet people who say to me ‘I always wanted to come, but I didn’t know how to get an invitation.’ Here we are today, open to the public, doing all these exhibitions, and people still feel it’s not accessible. But everybody knows what a museum is.”

The Rubell Museum’s debut exhibition is “a hit parade of the last 50 years of contemporary art: Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, all the favorites,” Mera Rubell explained. “If you’ve been scratching your head for the last 50 years saying ‘What the hell is all this crap?’, well that stuff is now worth $100 million. But never mind the money. We’re talking about the art that defined a generation.” So rather than dismissively rolling your eyes, she continued, “you can say ‘Wow, this is teaching me something about the world we live in’!”

That teachable lesson, for better or for worse, will be on full display throughout Miami next week. Below is a guide to the highlights.

So how do I attend the Art Basel Miami Beach fair?

Staged annually inside Miami Beach’s Convention Center, entrance is as easy as buying a ticket on site. (Although at $65 a ticket, it’s pricey window-shopping.)

What exactly is the difference between Art Basel Miami Beach and Miami Art Week?

The Art Basel Miami Beach fair features 269 exhibiting galleries. Nearly two dozen satellite fairs have also sprouted around Miami. Add in pop-up shows, celebrity-studded product rollouts, as well as Miami’s own galleries and museums all putting on their best faces, and you have the circus that local boosters have taken to calling “Miami Art Week.”

Two dozen satellite fairs, seriously?

Some, like Prizm and Pinta, focus on art made by the African diaspora and Latin Americans, respectively. NADA, or New Art Dealers Alliance, remains the fair on many itineraries for its emphasis on scrappy but influential galleries hovering just beyond Basel’s gatekeepers (and hoping to eventually breach the gate). The works here often offer an early look at tomorrow’s art stars. Another strong contender for Art Basel Jr. is the Untitled fair, whose galleries’ offerings tend to be a bit more thoughtfully gestated than much of NADA’s throw-it-all-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks aesthetic.

What about Miami’s own artists?

A perennial sore point for local residents is the dearth of homegrown talent found within the Basel fair — only 3 of its 269 exhibiting galleries are based in Miami. Still, those three are exhibiting some stellar natives: David Castillo will feature the winningly playful assemblages of Pepe Mar; Central Fine is showing paintings by Tomm El-Saieh, whose hypnotic brushwork fuses Haitian folkloric traditions with classic Abstract Expressionism; while Fredric Snitzer’s booth is devoted to paintings by Hernan Bas, whose beguiling, homoerotically charged portraits of dandies and waifs remain some of the strongest work to emerge from Miami over the past two decades.

Where can I see more local galleries?

Head to the Little Haiti neighborhood, the new ground zero for Miami’s most consistently impressive galleries — many of which were priced out of Wynwood as it morphed into an entertainment enclave. Start with Emerson Dorsch and their Color Field-steeped paintings by Mette Tommerup — but call ahead for performance times when Tommerup and her crew will be wrapping themselves inside her huge canvases and rollicking around the room. The Iris PhotoCollective ArtSpace is nearby, dedicated to socially engaged photography and run by Carl Juste, a Miami Herald photojournalist whose work never fails to dazzle. Nina Johnson is featuring new drawings by Terry Allen, and while his Lubbock, Texas, origins are anything but tropical, a rare opportunity to see his handiwork (and hopefully hear him perform some of his delectably barbed country songs) is too good to miss.

What other neighborhoods should I visit for art?

Southwest of Little Haiti, in Allapattah, is Spinello Projects’ group show featuring Clara Varas, who begins her process with an abstract painting (often done on a bedsheet) and then adds all manner of found detritus from the city streets, amounting to sculptural Frankensteins that are fascinatingly more than the sum of their parts. Then head up to the Design District’s Paradise Plaza for the latest jab at the art scene by the Brooklyn artist Eric Doeringer, who first grabbed attention in Miami by creating “bootleg” Art Basel V.I.P. cards (which let more than a few plebeians cross the velvet ropes). He’s since graduated to “bootleg” paintings, and his latest show features handcrafted Christopher Wool knockoffs priced at $1,000 each, several zeros cheaper than the real ones. It’s a stunt that works on both a conceptual level, wryly commenting on a blue-chip artist whose paintings already seem factory-made, and on a pleasurable one, offering Wool fans on a budget a chance to take home a tactile tribute: They may be fake Wools, but they’re genuine Doeringers.

How about Miami’s museums?

Another year, another mogul making a splash with a new privately owned museum. This time it’s Allapattah’s El Espacio 23, exhibiting the contemporary collection of the real estate developer Jorge Pérez, whose name already graces the side of the partially taxpayer-funded Pérez Art Museum Miami. After concerns that Mr. Pérez would turn his attention to his new project — leaving taxpayers to make up the difference — he has publicly assured his namesake museum that it will not see any lessening of his financial support. Over on South Beach, two small institutions have consistently been punching above their weight: The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, which is featuring provocative photographs by Zachary Balber that blend Yiddishkeit with thug life, and The Wolfsonian-FIU, paying an 80th birthday tribute to its Willy Wonka-esque founder, Mitchell Wolfson Jr., who has spent a lifetime traveling the world hunting down remarkable historical curios.

Enough museum-hopping, I need a break.

There’s a reason it’s called Miami Beach. Just a few blocks east of the Basel hubbub, the gently rolling surf of the Atlantic Ocean beckons. Bring a towel, stake out a quiet spot on the white sand, and explore the fine art of doing nothing. Admission is absolutely free.

Rubell Museum

1100 NW 23 Street, Miami, (305) 573-6090, info@rfc.museum

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