Friday, May 20, 2005

Anyone can put a goldfish in a blender

Men’s magazine FHM was in its full right when it printed photographs of goldfish swimming in blenders, the City Court of Frederiksberg has ruled. The verdict came as a defeat for Marco Evaristti, one of the Denmark’s most controversial artists, who is to pay FHM a compensation of DKK 20,000 for legal expenses. Evaristti achieved world fame and notoriety in 2000, when he put live goldfish in ten blenders and exhibited them as a part of an art exhibition in a Kolding art museum. A few visitors to the exhibition could not resist the temptation to push the button, turning the contents of some of the blenders into a murky soup. Animal welfare activists were outraged by the exhibition and said Evaristti was brutally playing with the lives of living creatures in an artistic practical joke. In August last year, FHM illustrated an article about a blender test with goldfish swimming in blenders. Evaristti said he decided to sue the magazine because he had sold his blenders to art collectors, and did not want the buyers to think he was selling the right to the artworks to magazines and advertisement agencies. The Frederiksberg court, however, said the picture did not breach the artist’s rights.

1 Comments:

At May 21, 2005 6:00 AM, Blogger Jude the Obscure said...

I remember standing in the Tate Gallery (London) in 1976 and looking at a pile of coal. Exhibited as art. True. A pile of coal. About three bags full. Dumped in the Tate Gallery. A work of art. I dunno.

 

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