U.K. artist turns ‘money for old rope’ into $1.8M art exhibition

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London (AFP) – British artist David Shrigley dumped tons of discarded rope at a London gallery and put a £1 million ($1.8 million Canadian) price tag on it, a playful interpretation of the phrase “cash for old rope.”

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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.

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Together they weigh about 10 tons and, after months of collection, had to be transported on 60 pallets.

The project, which drew giggles from passers-by peering through the Mayfair gallery's large windows when AFP visited on Thursday, aims above all to please.

“I decided to go by the British aphorism ‘cash for old rope,’ which essentially means you get rewarded for goods or services that have no value in themselves,” Shrigley said.

“I was interested in finding out what would happen if you literally imagined this statement.”

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Over the course of about seven months, Shrigley and his team collected pieces of rope discarded by fishermen, climbing centers and docks across the UK, then cleaned them up in their studio in Brighton, south-east England.

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

Installation in the gallery was easy.

“I didn’t really have a plan, I just accumulated it,” he said.

“I didn't really make any aesthetic decisions about how it was presented. (It's) just four big stacks of roughly the same size.”

He admits the price is a little “high” and that's part of the joke. But he says there is an excuse for this.

“On a weight basis, it's actually a very good price,” he said, referring to the sometimes exorbitant prices of contemporary art.

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“You don't get a lot of art for a million pounds, but 10 tons I think represents pretty good value for money.”

Shrigley says there is no single meaning to the piece. Art is not a puzzle to be solved with only one answer, he said. This should spark discussion and ideas.

“Essentially, I present something as art that has no value or has some kind of redundancy,” he said. “It's no longer useful. So maybe there's some pathos in it.”

He said he understands why cynics dismiss his work, but noted that in some ways it is designed with their interests in mind.

“Of course, there's an element of humor in it, but it's not like that. You know, the joke is very open,” he said. “There is a proposal to discuss this.”

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

“I'd be surprised if anyone bought it, but at the same time it's quite nice, come and have a look and see what you think,” he said.

“If you have a million pounds plus VAT, you can invest wisely.”

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