That was it.
A very quick and incredibly surprising ending to our work here: On Sunday morning we revisited the spot to see the results of the night, and when we reached the square we couldnt believe our eyes: All the coins were gone. Not one eurocent was left on the square. We were expecting everything, but not this fast and this complete. After the initial shock we found out the following: In the morning somebody showed up with a couple of plastic bags and started putting the coins into his bags. Apparently one of the neighbours saw this and thought this person is “stealing the artwork”, and called the police.
They showed up, talked to the guy with the bags, who had no problem with leaving everything right there. Somehow the police must have thought that is not enough to protect the artwork, and after trying to reach the owner of it, they decided to get into action themselves. They called a city cleaning company and cleaned up the whole square with brooms, and brought all the coins to a “safe” room at the police department.
So not more than 20 hours of completion of the work it was gone again already. And it was not removed by homeless people, not completely messed up by the youth coming back from clubbing. No, it was cleaned up by the authority, due to a big misunderstanding, to help and protect us and our work. Thank you!
Luckily Jens was around to at least take these great pictures of what happend.
f?!* the police
terrible and perfect!
[...] installation by Stefan Sagmeister is getting the headlines partly from what it was and more what happened to it. Sagmeister’s [...]
[...] Hele bericht « Goedemorgenfoto XVIII: [...]
Although it’s sad we couldn’t enjoy the piece some longer, I think it’s quite hilaric the way it ended, we never could’ve imagined this would happen :o)
On Monday the 22nd there was an article in de Volkskrant (national Dutch newspaper) about Urban Play with a nice (big) photo of the Sagmeister piece, it’s also online on
http://www.volkskrant.nl/kunst/article1069583.ece/Design_als_een_sociaal_bindmiddel
Anyway, I really enjoyed helping!
It’s mind-boggling how the police could have arrived at their solution. Granted, it may be outside the experience of some that a publicly installed art piece is intended to insight interaction that leads to it’s own decay and eventual dissolution. But even setting that aside, the response is akin to cutting all the words individually from a book and storing them in mason jars in an effort to keep plagiarists from copying the phrases wholesale. Or, taking a house down brick by brick and restacking the bricks in a fenced-in lot overseen by CCTV cameras in order to detour graffiti artists from tagging the building.
An unfortunately sudden, but due to the sheer absurdity of it, conceptually amazing, end to the piece.
Indeed, if there ever was an example to illustrate the true unpredictability of narratives that art can embody, this odd ending would be it.
While it is certainly easy to rag on the police about their choice on this one, ultimately I see it as just another example of the “cover your ass” mentality that has been forced into most government departments these days.
I imagine in their heads they were playing out this scenario, where if they didn’t do something about the situation, the artist and art owner would be upset and go to the media about how the police were lazy incompetents who just stood nearby doing nothing when people vandalized and stole the work of art. Seems crazy, but I’d put heavy money that such thoughts were a big motivational factor in their decision process. Fear and uncertainty do lead to idiocy.
250.000 cents…
In September 2008 Sagmeister Inc. participated in Droog Event 2: Urban Play. The public art installation consisted of 250,000 eurocents placed on the floor, covering more than 300sqm on a square in Amsterdam. The coins spelled out the sentence “O…
[...] of Planets A Stefan Sagmeister installation, an adage created with 250,000 Euro coins, was swept away by the police in Amsterdam. (Via Print.) [WD] Sagmeister Installation Destroyed by [...]
[...] on 29 Sep 2008 A Stefan Sagmeister installation, an adage created with 250,000 Euro coins, was swept away by the police in Amsterdam. (Via Print.) [...]
[...] So what can you do with 250,000 euros? Stefan Sagmeister and company organized and impressive public art installation. The piece had a shelf life of 20 hours before it was swept away. Find out why here. [...]
It was nice to see these cops just brush it away, since they saw no value in it—a nice analogy to how the broader world feels about his work.
[...] Euro coin installation So what can you do with 250,000 euros? Stefan Sagmeister and company organized an impressive public art installation. The piece had a shelf life of 20 hours before it was swept away. Find out why here. [...]
Well… Stefan, you really have nothing better to do with your life
[...] Sagmeister Inc’s Urban Play installation cleaned up by the authority, due to big misunderstand… [...]
hi there
what a great installation, reminds me of one of my hungarian friends, who did a piece where the biggest bill in the country was made by an insane number of the country’s smallest coins.
that time it was not an artwork with a permission, so they super-glued all the coins, looking like a film crew while they did it. and then they dissapeared.
the money were there for a while - thanks to the glue they were very hard to get off - but unfortunately there were people poor enough to invest the time and effort to scrape the small coins of the big bill.
as for your piece and the role of the police there is a very clear rationale behind the police’s decision to remove the artwork.
lazyness.
when someone calls the police they are obliged to show up, so they want to make sure that it happens only once. and in the process send a signal to the city that they don’t want to have that kind of mess in their neighborhood. who wants to spend time on imagination when there are real criminals out there?
that’s my guess.
great piece. next time - call the police and tell them not to worry. better yet, make a lawyer explain to them why.
[...] an extensive blog documenting the process. The conclusion is something that is straight out of the standard operating procedure [...]