In February 2001, Joey Skaggs was invited to participate in an exhibition at the Espai D’Art Contemporani (EACC) in Castellon, Spain. The show, entitled “En el Lado de la Television” [In the Side of Television] was intended to explore the relationships, contradictions and paradoxes between art and the mass media. Skaggs proposed a concept dealing with terrorism, violence and the media…
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On February 22, 2001, friend and co-conspirator Miso Alkalaj sent Joey Skaggs the first of many emails about a news story unfolding in Slovenia. A young law student had announced that he, representing all of Europe, had won first prize in a world competition in computer programming in Rio. Skeptics in the media became suspicious because they could not substantiate the existence of the competition, nor could they locate or talk to the student who had received government funding to enter this contest. Because Alkalaj declined to comment, they summarily decided that the whole thing was a hoax and he and Skaggs were behind it. The story gets more bizarre from there.
Read more →President George W. Bush, flanked by his loyal Cabinet and special friends, made a rare public spectacle of himself taking care of business in New York City’s Washington Square Park on July 4, 2004.
Read more →The Final Curtain was an over-the-top parody of the death care industry, designed to provoke people to think about their feelings about life, death and burial in a new light–before it’s personally too late.
Read more →On December 4, 1999, Joey Skaggs and a team of co-conspirators marched into Washington Square Park toting a 10’ x 14’ painting of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the Madonna and a large vat of elephant dung. The painting was a satirical replica of the Chris Ofili painting “Holy Virgin Mary” which was part of the Brooklyn Museum’s “Sensation” show. The Mayor had recently attempted to defund the museum because, to him, the artist’s use of elephant dung instead of paint was offensive. Skaggs’ plan was to offer the public an opportunity to doody Rudy with Dumbo’s dung.
Read more →BioPEEP, the code name for a top secret research project–which stood for Biological Protocol for Enhanced Economic Production–commissioned by an unnamed multinational corporation, was a sinister plot to genetically alter and irreversibly addict human beings who unknowingly consumed their products. At the point of successful isolation and testing on humans, the research was co-opted by the U.S. military for use as a biological weapon capable of eradicating DNA targeted populations (specifically Jews, Arabs, Africans and Asians) through consumer products.
Read more →In October 1995, Dr. Joseph Bonuso, Ph.D. (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs), research fellow and founding director of the Solomon Project, sent out more than 3,000 press releases to elected officials, judges, and law school deans. The release stated that he, with 150 computer scientists and attorneys specializing in artificial intelligence, had developed a solution to the crisis of American jurisprudence. It was called Solomon.
Read more →In February of 1995, Baba Wa Simba–Swahili for the Lion King–arrived in London ready to meet with his London Pride and later with the press. Born the son of American missionary parents in Kenya, Baba Wa Simba had grown up with the Masai at a lion sanctuary. His parents had been killed and eaten by lions, and, drawn to disenfranchised and troubled youth, he had developed his own philosophic approach to therapy, to heal the wounded animal within. Or, so he said. Baba Wa Simba was actually Joey Skaggs and the hoax was on the international media.
Read more →After The New York Times Magazine published John Tierney’s article, Falling For It, about Joey Skaggs’ Dog Meat Soup hoax, the National Enquirer called Skaggs and told him they were doing a profile about him. They wanted an exclusive photo shoot. They had covered Skaggs numerous times before and should have known what he looked like. He decided to send an impostor.
Read more →In May of 1994, Kim Yung Soo (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs), president of Kea So Joo, Inc., sent 1,500 letters to dog shelters around the U.S. soliciting their unwanted dogs for $.10 a pound. The outrage was instant.
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