No one rips off quicker than window dressers. They take next week's ideas from last week's paper, or they stop by the magazine stand on the way to Home Depot.
One Monday morning, I passed by Bergdorf's on my way to work just as they were unveiling the new windows. I stopped dead in my tracks as, unbelievably, two artist friends' works were ripped off at once: the backdrops were Stephen Hendee's crystalline architectural forms made of foamcore and black tape, and the designers' names were printed in the perspectival receding typeface of Ricci Albenda's paintings. By no coincidence, both artists had been featured in a cover story in art/text magazine that had hit the stands just days before. I called both artists and their dealers that morning, and the whole shebang was gone by the next day.
So I'm a little less shocked, shocked, than Todd is to find out Saks Fifth Avenue windows are decorated with "Dan Flavin" fluorescent lights. I'm also sure that Flavin'd be rolling over in his grave, if only the last work he completed before he died wasn't a Christmas light installation in the windows of the then-new Calvin Klein boutique on Madison.
Flavin on Fifth Avenue [fromthefloor]
Weird. Why have I written almost the exact phrase three times now? [google: "dan flavin" "calvin klein"]
