Nicolino, a conceptual artist, has proposed to string 10,000 bras across the Grand Canyon. "It's about the puritanical obsession with the breast," the 53-year-old artist told Denver's Rocky Mountain News. "It's about breast implants and victimizing the health of women. It's about connecting a woman's self-identity to the size of her breasts."

Nicolino has a message for American women: I want your bras. He's got several dozen "bra agents" and says he has collected 1,500 so far. He has already figured out how to put the project in place: Helicopters will lower each end of the bra string and hook them into the sides of the canyon. "I had a fantasy of using blimps to lower [the bras] onto the hooks. That would have been symbolic. But I've been told the winds are too strong."

Park officials are just saying no to the idea. "Grand Canyon National Park just is not an appropriate venue" for a display of undergarments, said acting Superintendent Gary Cummins. But Nicolino has vowed to fight the decision. To raise money for the project, he plans to build two miles of "sand castle breasts" along Northern California's Stinson Beach.

Nicolino denied he is obsessed with breasts. "In my case, it's not that serious," he said. "I can be detached enough to at least be an observer."

†