Results tagged “thorarinningijonsson”

A little over a year ago, Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson walked into the Royal Ontario Museum, left a bomb just inside its entrance, and walked out. The bomb, of course, was fake, a replica created for a class project at OCAD, but that hardly mattered: it looked just like the real thing, and when it was discovered, wrapped in a plastic bag with a note that said "this is not a bomb" on it, it shut down not only the museum and a significant stretch of Bloor Street but an AIDS fundraiser. Jonsson spoke to Torontoist before turning himself in to police; after that, he was thrown out of OCAD, charged with (and pleaded guilty to) mischief, placed on probation, and returned to Iceland, before coming back to Toronto in February and, only recently, speaking to press again.

Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson—he of fake ROM bomb fame—has given an interview to the Post, the first since his conviction for mischief and subsequent probation in September. The interview's short, but there's a lot to take away from it: Jonsson reveals that his piece was "equally as big" in his native Reykjavik as here, but "in Toronto, it was crazy. Hate mail, and death threats, and people coming up on the street and threatening me"; he discusses some of the ways in which 9/11 was art (a comparison that, however disquieting, has been made by everyone from Jean Baudrillard to Elizabeth Wurtzel); talks about a piece of his in Reykjavik that pissed off the neighbours there; and claims that "besides the interruption to the benefit, the public response, and the way people handled the piece, I consider [the ROM piece] my finest work to date, in a certain way." Oh, and he really likes it here and hopes to come back: "I’m so in love with Toronto. I wish they were more positive towards me."

Torontoist has already done a pretty good job of letting you know how rad Posterchild is. In fact, the extent to which Torontoist writes about Posterchild could be seen as the textual equivalent of a marriage proposal. So without rehashing what has already been said about our favourite local street artist/public space crusader, just know that his radness is still on the upswing with new and improved versions of what he’s known best for:...

On Thursday evening, Torontoist broke the news that Wednesday's bomb threat at the Royal Ontario Museum was OCAD student Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson's final project for an advanced video class. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's readymades (like Fountain, pictured above), Jonsson told us that the piece was about recontextualization, the idea that context changes art's meaning; in this case, something that is, he said, "quite clearly not dangerous, but when you put it in a different...

The half-wit OCAD student who planted a fake bomb at the ROM on Wednesday has turned himself in to police and been charged with mischief and common nuisance. Ha, closing a major thoroughfare, wasting the time of hundreds of police and emergency service personnel, and forcing the cancellation of an AIDS gala—what a lovable scamp. The death rates at Canadian Hospitals have now been made public in a report from the Canadian Institute for...

Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson has, as he put it to Torontoist in a phone interview earlier today, "seen better days." The Integrated Media OCAD student and his final project for his advanced video class are the direct cause––intended or not––for yesterday's bomb scare at the Royal Ontario Museum, and, a day later, Jonsson is now suspended from OCAD and is wanted for questioning by police. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's readymades pieces (the most famous of...

Photo by David Topping. A mysterious bag discovered in an alleyway beside the Royal Ontario Museum at about 7:00 p.m. tonight has shut down all traffic––pedestrian and vehicular––on Bloor between St. George and University and on Queen's Park southbound from Bloor and Harbord. UPDATE (10:45 p.m.): CTV is now saying that police have found "what appears to be a pipe bomb," and that the building was (half-)evacuated (contrary to what we were originally told)....