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'Berlusconi's fat' moulded to art

BBC ^ | 20 June 2005 | BBC

Posted on by 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.



TOPICS:

Extended News

Foreign Affairs

KEYWORDS:

berlusconi

eurotrash

liposuction





To: mcg1969

Lovely.



by 2 posted onby Recovering Hermit (Void where prohibited...but only if there is absolutely no toilet.)

To: mcg1969

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)?



by 3 posted onby wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)

To: wideawake

I love that movie!



To: wideawake

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.



To: Borges

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.



by 6 posted onby wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)

To: mcg1969

Yet another reason why I will never understand art.



by 7 posted onby kennedy ("Why would I listen to losers?")

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



To: texas_mrs



crap sold as art ping



To: mcg1969

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



by 10 posted onby SlowBoat407 (A living affront to Islam since 1959)

To: mcg1969

I think I'll have to ping this out.



Maximum revolting.



It is NOT art.



by 11 posted onby little jeremiah (A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are incompatible with freedom. P. Henry)

To: wideawake

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.



To: an italian

ping



To: mcg1969

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



by 14 posted onby fish hawk (I am only one, but I am not the only one.)

To: ABG(anybody but Gore)

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.



To: mcg1969

"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?



by 16 posted onby reagan_fanatic (The theory of evolution is the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century - Michael Denton)

To: fish hawk

Kennedy's fat molded into replica of a full sized SUV. How about an Oldsmobile?



by 17 posted onby TBarnett34 (What part of "up or down" do you RINOs not understand?)

To: leftofright

LOL!



Excellent!



by 18 posted onby Baraonda (Demographic is destiny. Don't hire 3rd world illegal aliens nor support businesses that hire them.)

To: leftofright

LOL!



by 19 posted onby ConservativeMan55 (DON'T FIRE UNTIL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THE CURTAINS THEY ARE WEARING ON THEIR HEADS !)

To: texas_mrs

"crap sold as art ping" Don't give this sculptor any ideas.



by 20 posted onby ValenB4 ("Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." - Isaac Asimov)

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