LRC links today to a story about a work of art being mistaken for trash and thrown away. This is by no means the first time in the recent history of modern art that such a thing has happened. Here’s Dave Barry:
“Another important British artist is Damien Hirst. In 1995 he also won the Turner Prize, for an entry that consisted of – I am not making any of this up – a cow and a calf cut in half and preserved in formaldehyde. Last October, a London gallery threw a party to launch an exhibition by Hirst. When it was over, there was a bunch of party trash – beer bottles, ashtrays, coffee cups, etc. – lying around. Hirst, artist that he is, arranged this trash into an ‘installation’ which is an artistic term meaning ‘trash that the gallery can now price at 5,000 pounds and try to sell to a wealthy moron.’
“The next morning, in came the janitor, who, tragically, was not an art professional. When he saw the trash, he assumed it was trash and threw it away.”
Here’s the whole piece.
1:28 am on July 13, 2005
