CTV;
A Toronto art student charged in connection with a bomb hoax at the Royal Ontario Museum that triggered an evacuation and cancelled a prestigious AIDS fundraiser has been granted bail.
Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson’s Ontario College of Art and Design profile is a little less entertaining than it used to be…
(Google cache)
(h/t reader Dana.)
Update – OCAD-Linked Videos surface.
I noticed CTVTass closed the comments rather quickly,after 99% of them where calling this guy stupid and ignorant.What’s the matter CTV? Nobody(except 2) standing up for your useful idiots??
I always find it puzzling that some self-described artists insist on behaviour/creating “art” that is designed to provoke negative reactions.
OK, now you’ve got everyone’s attention – do you have anything important, constructive or relevant to say?
This is always followed by some blathering from the bad actor about “raising awareness”, testing people’s tolerance levels, experimenting with society, “proving a point” or exposing the [insert leftist terminology here] of western society.
It seems to be all about gaining attention and kudos from like-minded friends. That’s a pretty pathetic motivation and must look really great on a resume when it comes time to find a REAL job.
I don’t know….I think the young man has a future in the LPC or the NDP.
Very bravish and controversial in the correctest sort of way. A rising star.
Syncro
I wonder if that’s the guy who used to drink dye and go to galleries to throw up on the paintings? =P
Funny how when you sign up on that page it asks your ethnicity.
He puts N/A. I guess his getting around that question is a work of art too. Otherwise he’d probably starve.
At least in jail he can get bread and water.
He’ll probably switch to Performance Art there.
His greatest piece will be titled “Midnight Bunghole Intrusion”
And it’s so trite. This guy tries so hard to be avant garde and the best he can come up with is a laundry list of banal statements. Over and over again, the same tired routine; his friends and profs pretend it’s new, because, well, who the hell are they if it isn’t? On the other hand, they could be equally mundane and unimaginative.
Ok Lefties, lesson for today is free speech.
Posting certain passages from Leviticus on the internet, saying mean things about gays and generally being unpleasant is free speech. Well, but not in Canada.
Leaving a package at the ROM that says “This is not a bomb” is not free speech. It is yelling FIRE! in a crowded theater. We shall see if Mr. Jonsson gets an appropriate punishment. Being an ahhhtist, he’s a member of a protected group so he may walk away from this.
If he does, then we will know for sure that Canada is exactly 180 degrees ass backward and the promised Workers Paradise has finally arrived.
“This incident at the ROM was totally unacceptable”
Oh, come on, ROM. Let’s not go all wobbly and right-wing on us now. It’s speech, man. It’s creative, artistic expression. You’re just mad because it inconvenienced you rather than, say, a meeting of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Is a person still allowed to cry “CENSORSHIP!” in a crowded art gallery?!?!
Art whose primary purpose is to draw attention to the artist is probably not going to be very good art.
It wasn’t all bad. He did cancel an AIDS fundraiser. If it had been for something thats not preventable like heart disease or cancer, that would have been a different story. I bet if he told the police he knew it would short circuit an AIDS fundraiser he wouldn’t be out on bail, but probably awaiting his court appearance from maximum security somewhere.
Note also that he refuses to take any responsibility for the result – police response, evacuation of the museum, cancellation of charity event, etc. No, he blames those-who-responded.
His statement is that it’s the police’s fault for ‘over-reacting’; it’s the Museum’s fault for ‘over-reacting’. He says they are the ones who have ‘problems’.
A narcissistic, self-absorbed and ignorant twit.
I think that the tactic of hiding rubbish behind the title of ‘art’ is as reprehensible as hiding criminal acts behind the title of ‘religion’.
What a narcissistic little sociopath.
I noticed he’s made an amendment to the cached version of his bio. His favorite “work of art” captured before us, “the destruction of the World Trade Centres”, is restated on his site today as “My favorite work of art is under review for legal reasons”.
How do you raise such an immoral vicious dimwit that finds the heinous murder of 3000 people “art”?
Ooops, I missed Kate’s headline before I posted.
She’s always two steps ahead of us.
Hell Penny, glorifying the WTC atrocity is a friggin’ THEME in “art” these days.
My favorite was the SOB who made a (really crappy) sculpture depicting a woman about to hit the ground after jumping off the WTC. His feelings were all hurted when the City of New York refused to let him display it in a public place. Seems the police budget was going to be strained by having to post 24 hour guards to keep the hoy paloy from taking a sledge hammer to it.
No word on how they planned on keeping the cops from breaking it.
“What a narcissistic little sociopath.” By golly Penny, I think you have it.
I don’t profess to be an art critic (other than being a human being with self awareness) but art should have some social value if only to generate emotion or feelings in the audience. IMHO inciting hatred, rage or disgust do not count as emotions I’d associate with art.
btw, I consider photography to be a mixed medium which may or may not be art.
I think that the tactic of hiding rubbish behind the title of ‘art’ is as reprehensible as hiding criminal acts behind the title of ‘religion’.
Posted by: ET at December 1, 2007 9:42 AM
— ET you have very succinctly hit the nail right square on top of the Goddamn head with this little gem. I believe this little proverb is suitable for framing. Thank-you.
Since he has already been granted bail, he must have been represented by a LAWYER. Would it be safe to assume that the lawyer was supplied by legal aid, (meaning that the taxpayer covers the tab? As one of those taxpayers, any chance of seeing the bill?)
Want to bet his lawyer had him clean up his site real fast.
The kid’s a psychiatric piece of work, applauding blownup buildings and planting fake pipe bombs. I wonder if he set cats on fire as a kid.
If he wasn’t a pampered brat and was born a few rungs down the socio-economic ladder, he’d be the typical violent punk doodling art in prison.
Hmmm … favorite artists include “Adolph Hitler” and favorite work of art is “the destruction of the World Trade Center”. That already tells you a few things about this guy, but important visual information is available here:
Meet The Man Who Claims To Be Behind The ROM Bomb Hoax
Note the trendy kaffiyeh worn in solidarity with the oppressed Hamas and Fatah.
Sorry, but I forgot to add the “books are meant to be burned” entry under “author or poet”. That means “books are meant to be burned” goes along with “Adolph Hitler”, “destruction of the World Trade Centers”, and the Arafat necktie. Not that I think this is a pattern or anything.
I thought the ROM was already bombed, and they left the mess and titled it ‘modern archtecture’.
Sorry, but I forgot to add the “books are meant to be burned” entry under “author or poet”. That means “books are meant to be burned” goes along with “Adolph Hitler”, “destruction of the World Trade Centers”, and the Arafat necktie. Not that I think this is a pattern or anything.
My first thought when I read the article about this fellow in the “Blubb and Wail” was, “what a pretty boy he is – I wonder how he can afford his hair dresser”.
Adolf Hitler was not without talent as an artist (some of his watercolours can be found on the Web) but I don’t think the art world lost very much when Hitler went into destroying European civilisation instead. Come to think about it, Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson may be seeking a positiion in the same trade.
Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson: a pretty, silly boy. I do hope that nothing good happens to him.
“work of art: the destruction of the World Trade Centres”
Don’t tell me he did THAT one too!
The boy gets around…
This guy is really sick – a mental hospital in iceland would be a good place to put him – if he is a indication of the mentality of Icelanders then the mental hospitals are probably overflowing – deport him.
I certainly would not hesitate to kick the sh!t out of him if our paths were to cross.
Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson: The fruits of official multiculturalism in Canada.
Was Jonsson born in Canada? If he’s not a Canadian citizen, ride him out on a rail.
If he is a Canadian citizen, put him in jail.
For a long time.
To answer my own question (hmmm…talking to myself again…): Jonsson, apparently, is an Icelandic student studying art (sic and sick) in Toronto.
Get him the He** out of Canada. We definitely don’t need provocateurs like him in an already volatile city. We’ve got enough of them as it is.
This episode is another version of the play wherein so-called artists think that the consequences of their little “social dramas” are just the spice that makes them relevant.
We had one dolt here in the ‘Peg a number of years back who believed that spreading bovine blood and semen around a second floor loft in the exchange district in front of an enthusiastic, if small, lefty audience, was just the artsy thing to symbolize the spread of AIDS in the community and “build awareness”.
Unfortunately, much of the “artiste’s” media seeped through the floor into the leather luggage shop below and destroyed a portion of the merchant’s inventory. When the merchant sued, the “artiste’s” supporters crowed that the consequences borne by the unfortunate merchant simply further dramatized the consequences of AIDS dissemination in the community and, therefore, the “artiste’s” actions should be excused, indeed should be lauded.
This is no doubt the attitude of the latest “social dramatist”, all in the name of art of course.
more artistic expression from the arts types
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/071201/K12019AU.html
A simple test would be to have someone disrupt his life with some sort of hoax. Again a disruption to, the no doubt creatures, of habit that his supporters may be.
The indignant fury of such people can only be imagined. Simply put, he does something to someone. Something was not done to him- yet. I suppose the law will deal with him in a way that smacks of appeasement. Still, along the line, even the courts will see what sort of Pandora’s box, they may open.
Yes, he’s childish, but then he’s also young. What concerns me is that with a name like his, he’s asked for “ethnicity” and he puts “N/A”. Does he think that means “bleeding obvious”?