Ed Kienholz, an artist working in Los Angeles during the '50's and '60's, is most famous for his sculpture entitled, " Back Seat of a Dodge '38".

His inspiration was personal experience, as he explained in this interview: "One night when I was about 17, I borrowed  my father’s ’38 Dodge and drove it across the state line to a dance at Chatcolet Lake, Idaho. “This girl was out there, and I enticed her into the car,” he said. “We got some beer and pulled off in the tules someplace and did intimate and erotic things and had a nice time."

Same as it ever was.

But in 1966, when he first tried to exhibit this work, the Los Angeles art world was shocked, and the LA County Board of Supervisors tried to ban the work calling it pornographic. And while it's true that the sculpture portrays a couple engaged in sexual activity in the back seat of a truncated automobile chassis, it won Kienholz instant celebrity then and now defines an entire movement, securing Los Angeles a vaulted place in the domestic and international art worlds.

As usual, no such thing as bad press.

But Kienholz wasn't just shaking up the staid art society, he did the same to the airline industry. In 1968, when he was flying TWA back from
Europe, he was carrying with him a valauble and fragile lampshade. TWA insisted he check it instead of carrying it on the plane with him and
he was quite irate, but agreed, as long as they agreed to pay for any damage. Of course, upon landing, the lampshade was in pieces, and TWA
refused to pay.

What a shocker!

Not one to take this lying down, Kienholz returned to LAX with a typewritten letter, a photographer, and an ax. Kienholz’s letter bluntly stated: “Good morning, my name is Ed Kienholz…you broke my lampshade and I’m really unhappy…so I’m going to cause TWA an equal amount of damage. I’m going to destroy a desk for TWA.” This is exactly what Kienholz proceeded to do; he destroyed the desk and, somehow, made it back to his car before being apprehended by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Hmmm. I guess now we just use twitter. And we don't have to get arrested, but I much prefer his audacity.