I wrote about this last Friday, and I thought that was that.
But after watching the interview with him, I got more upset. He is such a perfect stereotype of the sort of arrogant artist (My piece is important, but whatever it is that police do is usually a waste of time. Not at all like us useful-to-society artists.) that gives the rest of us a bad name. And, to make him even less likable, his ideas to back up his fake bomb threat are so weaksauce. Yes, Duchamp putting a urinal in a gallery setting is recontextualization. The mass-produced urinal becomes a “Ready-Made Sculpture”. It gains prestige and importance and it takes on a significance that it didn’t have in its normal context.
But your fake bomb isn’t a “ready-made” and putting a fake bomb in a museum isn’t recontextualization! It’s just contextualization! It’s still a fake bomb! It has all the significance a “real” fake bomb in a museum has! It’s like Duchamp installed his “sculpture” in a men’s room, and then feigned surprise when dudes pissed in it!
“But I put a note on it that said: ‘This is not a urinal’!”
Still, I had second thoughts about this one.
First I wondered;
“Is it honouring him? Am I just adding to his notoriety? He seems to have wanted to build his reputation, what with the bomb threat and contacting the media and all.”
and then I thought;
“Is this bullying? Am I picking on him? This is likely a stressful time for him, I’m sure. What if I push him over the edge?”

Maybe this is building his fame, stretching out his 15 minutes, but what he did has already thrust him in into the public eye- and if you’re going to be an artist in the public eye- then you’ve got to learn to handle the critics. This like a political cartoon. And maybe I am teasing him a bit, but after that super-arrogant interview (It’s worth watching until the end where he suggests that the dislike of his bomb threat might be due to a flaw in the Canadian national character.) I feel fine taking the piss out of him.
If you feel the urge to put it back, he’s on his knees on the side of the OCAD building.

You know,

Looking at this now, I realize that it would have been much better if I had made a second layer to paint the urinal white.
I suppose we all make mistakes.