The China Mail - UK artist turns 'money for old rope' into £1m art exhibition

The Turner Prize-nominated artist's work, which opens on Friday at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in central London, consists of four huge piles of old rope.

Together they weigh in at around 10 tonnes and had to be transported on 60 pallets after months of collecting.

The project, which attracted giggles from passersby peeking through the Mayfair gallery's large windows when AFP visited on Thursday, above all seeks to be fun.

"I decided to act upon the British aphorism, which is 'money for old rope', which basically means that you're being remunerated for goods or a service that has in itself no value," Shrigley said.

"I was interested to figure out what would happen if you make a literal representation of that saying."

Over around seven months, Shrigley and his team gathered discarded pieces of ropes from fishermen, climbing centres and docks across Britain before being cleaned at his studio in Brighton, southeast England.

"It turns out that people are quite willing to give you old rope for nothing because it's not recyclable," he said.

Installation at the gallery was simple.

"I didn't really have a plan, I just kind of piled it up," he said.

"I didn't make any aesthetic decision, really, as to how it was presented. (It) is just four big piles that are roughly the same size."

The price tag, he admits, is a little "high" and part of the joke. But he says there is a justification.

"By weight, it's actually very good value," he said, referring to the sometimes exorbitant price tags for modern art.

"You're not going to get an awful lot of art for a million pounds, but 10 tonnes, I think, represents quite good value for money."

Shrigley says there's no single meaning for this piece. Art is not a puzzle to solve with a single answer, he said. It should be a trigger for discussion, for ideas.

"I'm basically presenting something as art, that has no value, or that has a kind of redundant redundancy about it," he said. "It's no longer any use. So perhaps there's a bit of pathos there."

He said he understands why cynics will dismiss his work but he said in some ways it is designed with them in mind.

"Sure, there's an element of it being a joke, but it's not. You know, the joke is very open ended," he said. "It's a proposition to have a discussion about it."

The exhibition, which is free for the public, runs until December 20.

"I would be surprised if anybody bought it, but at the same time, it's kind of nice, come and see it, see what you think," he said.

"If you've got a million pounds plus VAT, you could invest wisely."

J.Thompson--ThChM