The portrait of Bill Cosby made out of JELL-O shots went off without a hitch last night at Buoy Gallery. Here are a few pictures of what went down:

Once the portrait was finished and open for consumption things took an unexpected turn as participants in the exhibition started to rearrange the JELL-O shots to see how Bill Cosby would look if, for instance, he had a doobie in his mouth and a ponytail or if he spontaneously turned into pacman.

Here’s a slide show I made with a time lapse of Bill’s JELL-O shot transformations:

Thanks to everyone who helped me with this project, especially Al from Buoy Gallery, Mike from the Music Hall, and Raj from Tulsi (who let me use his kitchen and refrigerator to make the JELL-O shots).

Interviews I did about the show:

The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research (you have to scroll down a little)
The Wire
The Portsmouth Herald

Here’s the press release for the exhibition:

You’re invited to “JELL-O HEAD,” an exhibition by Andrew Salomone featuring a portrait of Bill Cosby made from approximately 1,000 JELL-O shots. The exhibition will take place on Bill Cosby’s birthday, Sunday July 12th, starting around 4 pm, at Buoy Gallery. The audience is invited to enjoy the exhibition as they consume it and are welcome to as many JELL-O shots as they wish (over 21s only). Plans have also been made to broadcast the event live over the internet so that viewers at home can witness the gradual destruction of Bill Cosby‘s likeness and possibly some of the audience member‘s sobriety (the title of the exhibition is a reference to both its content and the mental state of some of the audience members on the following morning).

I’ve embroidered a sweater for Amy Winehouse with all of her tattoos on it in all the right places.

Let me tell you why I’ve done this:

About 9 months ago I heard something about Amy Winehouse having health issues. Then I noticed that Amy Winehouse never seemed to be wearing a lot of clothes in any of the pictures I saw of her. I also noticed that she changed her look very often and looked drastically different from picture to picture. It occurred to me that maybe she felt like she had to wear revealing clothing in order to be recognized by showing off her distinctive tattoos. I found several pictures where it appears that even when she did wear warmer clothing, she was still forced to expose her tattoos.

It seemed very problematic to me that someone who is dealing with health problems would have to expose herself to the elements just because her profession requires her to be publicly recognizable. I realized that if someone were to make her a sweater that displayed her tattoos to the world without exposing her to the elements, then maybe some of her health problems would go away. At the very least it might prevent her from getting a cold.

Here is what Amy Winehouse might look like in the sweater I’ve made for her:

I thought about other ways of making this sweater, but decided that the sweater had to be embroidered by hand so that it would be as unique and distinctive as the tattoos it covers up. It also made sense that the sweater should be embroidered because embroidery is like a tattoo on fabric.

I know this sweater may not be appropriate for a lot of the fancy places that Amy might have to go, but I know she has had problems with paparazzi in the past, so at least maybe sometimes when she is recognized and photographed she can also be warm.

It only makes sense that Amy should have this sweater. If anyone has any idea how to make that happen please let me know: asalomone [AT] gmail [DOT] com