About
In September 2008 Sagmeister Inc. is participating in Droog Event 2: Urban Play. The public art installation will consist of 250.000 eurocents placed on the floor, covering more than 300sqm on a square in Amsterdam (>Map). The coins will spell out the sentence “Obsessions make my life worse and my work better”. The piece is part of the series “Things I have learned in my life so far” by Stefan Sagmeister.
From September 14-21 this blog will document the process of setting up the piece, and will then feature live webcam images of the installation.
About the Sentence
I rarely obsess about things in my private life. I fail to care about the right shade of green for the couch, the sexual secrets of an ex-lover or the correct temperature of the meeting room AC. I don’t think I miss much.
However, I do obsess over our work and think that a number of our better projects came out of such an obsession. Doodling obsessively onto a poster depicting a headless chicken and an obsession with white angry monkeys that ultimately led to the giant inflatable animals all over Scotland are just two such examples.
From Bernd and Hilda Becher’s obsessive need to record every water tower to On Kawara’s date paintings and James Turrell’s Roden Crater, obsessions seem to be an important ingredient in the work of many of our favorite contemporary artists.
Obsessions make my Life worse and my Work better.*
*”Think dangerously, act safely” is a close relative - possibly its uncle -from my mentor Tibor Kalman.
- Stefan Sagmeister
Details
The design is created using four different shades of pennies. We first sort them by color, then lay them out on the tiles. you can download the original design (zip, 4.4MB).
After the piece is completely set up we will leave it alone, on the street. We expect the piece to slowly dissolve as people take coins, play with them, alter the design. All coins have been painted on the back with a bright blue permanent color.
