'Berlusconi's fat' moulded to art

BBC ^ | 20 June 2005 | BBC

[mcg1969]

An art work purportedly made from excess fat from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sold for $18,000 (£9,862).

Switzerland-based artist Gianni Motti claims to have bought the fat from a clinic where the leader had a liposuction operation performed.

He moulded it into a bar of soap which he named Mani Pulite (Clean Hands).

The work was put on display at the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and was sold to a private Swiss collector.

Motti gave it the title Clean Hands as a reference to an anti-corruption campaign of the 1990s. It reflects the artist's view of the current government.

"I came up with the idea of because soap is made of pig fat, and I thought how much more appropriate it would be if people washed their hands using a piece of Berlusconi," Motti told Welwoche magazine.

Motti's work was part of the display from the Galerie Nicola von Senger of Zurich, one of 270 worldwide galleries exhibiting contemporary works.

All the works on display were for sale, with prices topping $45,000 (£24,658) as collectors hope to uncover the big names of the future.

[mcg1969]

[Recovering Hermit]

Lovely.

[wideawake]

So all I have to do is tell a few lies, steal an idea from a Hollywood movie (in this case Fight Club) and I can sell some "art" for big bucks (or euros)?

[Borges]

I love that movie!

[leftofright]

I don't know how much fat Berlusconi had, but if one bar fetches $18,000, then Ted Kennedy by himself could pay down the national debt.

[wideawake]

It has its strengths and its (perhaps fatal) weaknesses.

I can't tell if it is ultimately a doomed rejection of the free market or a sardonic endorsement of same.

Certainly Pitt and Norton's best acting work to date, a fascinating and often clever script, and an interesting visual language.

Not a triumph, but a film well worth seeing - the dark spoofing of the recovery/group therapy industry alone was worth the price of admission.

[kennedy]

Yet another reason why I will never understand art.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

I don't know how much fat Berlusconi had, but if one bar fetches $18,000, then Ted Kennedy by himself could pay down the national debt.

Between he and Jerry Nadler, we could end poverty in America and still have enough left over to fight the war on terror!

[texas_mrs]

crap sold as art ping

[SlowBoat407]

At the Boardwalk Art Show in Virginia Beach this past weekend, one "artist" had on display a series of "mummified angels" - dolls with wings wrapped up like mummies and suffering varying forms of abuse or imprisonment.

It was nightmarish and evil, but somehow is declared art by show judges and media.

Pitiful

[little jeremiah]

I think I'll have to ping this out.

Maximum revolting.

It is NOT art.

[Borges]

I thought it was a rejection of cheap sloganeering from dime store nihilists. Pitt's dogmatic rejection of corporate culture morphs into just another version of it (franchises, slogans, conformity). In the end it's the individual that matters. Though that's only one reading of a pretty rich film. People like Michael Medved and David Denby who took it completely straight missed the point that it was a satire.

[Wiz]

ping

[fish hawk]

Kennedy's fat molded into replica of a full sized SUV.

[Dengar01]

Between he and Jerry Nadler, we could end poverty in America and still have enough left over to fight the war on terror!

Wow, just add Michael Moore to this scenario and we could solve world hunger.

[reagan_fanatic]

"I came up with the idea of because soap is made of pig fat, and I thought how much more appropriate it would be if people washed their hands using a piece of Berlusconi," Motti told Welwoche magazine.

I wonder what the difference is as far as the percentage of artists who are afflicted with mental illness as opposed to the general population as a whole?

[TBarnett34]

Kennedy's fat molded into replica of a full sized SUV.

How about an Oldsmobile?

[Baraonda]

LOL!

Excellent!

[ConservativeMan55]

LOL!

[ValenB4]

"crap sold as art ping"

Don't give this sculptor any ideas.