Barbara Kruger

A real estate broker has plastered an Upper West Side retail space with an advertisement imitating (or celebrating) the work of renowned artist Barbara Kruger, who, interestingly enough, borrowed imagery from advertisements in order to criticize consumerism, according to an article in today's Washington Post.

Said real estate broker is Matt Harnett, a photographer and one-time teacher at the School of Visual Arts, who called the ad for retail space at the foot of 2625 Broadway an "ode to Barbara Kruger."

But borrowing from an anti-consumerist artist to promote consumerism is, well, sort of mind-bending. Of course, ad folks have been borrowing from the art world for ages.  read more »

Seven months after getting disbarred for his ties to a personal-injury practice in Long Island City that belonged to a non-attorney who’d made his money in taxicab medallions, and 10 months after closing on a $35 million mansion on East 62nd Street that Madonna had bid on, the lawyer turned real estate investor Keith Rubenstein has made another real estate deal. But it’s more modest.

According to city records, he and his wife, Inga, an art collector and ex-model, spent $3.2 million on a two-bedroom duplex at 101 Warren Street, the massive new Tribeca condo building.

It’s a much smaller place than the penthouse (marketed as a “skyhome”) that Mr.  read more »