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Date: 2000.
The story of how "Cheap Cheap" was commissioned and where it went are a little complicated. However it's also an interesting window into how art and commerce cross paths. I have even written this tale out in my book 'Escape' by way of an introduction to a chapter called "Transaction Transition". Initially it was meant to be a simple commission for somebody's garden. The project became interesting when I started to question my motivation and how this related to authenticity. It was difficult to ignore the fact that money was the main motivational force in this piece. At the same time I always believed that exploring and questioning my motivation was key to my work becoming something more than just craft. That's why I decided to address the subject 'head on' and make these bird boxes out of money. The coins also had another significance. When making a bird box it's traditional to make the entrance hole the same size as a two pence coin. This makes the hole just big enough for blue tits to get in but is small enough to keep out the common sparrow. Having addressed my issues I impressed myself with the concept behind this piece. The commissioner on the other hand was less impressed and the work was rejected. |
The bird boxes sticking out of the pig pen behind a herd of goats
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At the same time as the garden commission I had been selected as part of a group of 11 artists to make a piece for a sculpture trail in Hoek van Holland.
'Kunst over de grens' ('Art crossing the border') was a very different type of commission altogether. There was a generous budget but the project was really about the artists following their intellectual path and certainly more prestigious than making an ornament for somebodies garden. I developed a suitably ambitious plan and was very excited. Then the organisers told us that there was a problem with the funding; they couldn't give us the fee we were expecting and could we do the same thing for a fraction of what they promised. I threw my ambitious plan in the bin and replaced it with 'Cheap Cheap'. |
Play for the stereo recording that came from inside the boxes,
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The boxes were installed in a pig pen on a children's petting farm which was on the sculpture trail. They were also modified to incorporate sound.
Each bird box had a speaker installed in it that played a cassette tape of mine and a female voice repeating the word "Cheap" over and over until we filled up a C90 audio cassette tape. It was in stereo so that the voices came from the two different boxes. The player was hidden in a rabbit hutch somewhere else on the farm. The sound was fed to the boxes via cables that were hung from the telegraph poles that the boxes were fixed to. The recording is not repeated or looped but the player was set on 'continuous play mode' playing both sides. Sometimes it is possible to detect exasperation in the voices as we struggled to fill up the entire one and a half hour long cassette tape. The children's petting farm in Hoek van Holland is situated next to two lighthouses. An old redundant one and its modern replacement. Positioned one behind the other they both point out to sea in the direction of England. The two bird boxes were positioned in a similar way to visually echo this arrangement.
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The two light houses in the distance
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The bird box posts mimic the light houses. The farmer told me his vietnamese pot bellied pig was deaf so the noise wouldn't bother it.
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The bird boxes were eventually installed where they were supposed to go originally- in somebodies garden.
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A jackdaw flys off its artistic perch.
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Legacy?
The sculpture trail in Holland was a temporary installation. The original commissioner liked the modifications and so when it was returned from Holland it was eventually installed in their garden as originally intended.
The phonetic word for a bird noise in Dutch is not "cheap". Its more like the English word " chirrup". Consequently the double meaning and irony of the word were lost on the Dutch audience. However, there is a flock of jackdaws that spend much of their time around the children's petting zoo scavenging on animal feed. A friend said he saw one sitting on the top of a bird box listening to the recording of my voice. The jackdaw is a renowned mimic and I often wonder if there are birds in Holland that now say "cheap" in an English accent.
The sculpture trail in Holland was a temporary installation. The original commissioner liked the modifications and so when it was returned from Holland it was eventually installed in their garden as originally intended.
The phonetic word for a bird noise in Dutch is not "cheap". Its more like the English word " chirrup". Consequently the double meaning and irony of the word were lost on the Dutch audience. However, there is a flock of jackdaws that spend much of their time around the children's petting zoo scavenging on animal feed. A friend said he saw one sitting on the top of a bird box listening to the recording of my voice. The jackdaw is a renowned mimic and I often wonder if there are birds in Holland that now say "cheap" in an English accent.
Click on this button to read a short and amusing review
in the 'Volksrant' (Dutch national paper)
in the 'Volksrant' (Dutch national paper)
(For more art about money and selling see also ''Give Me The Money', 'A Portrait of Casper DeBoer' and 'Offer Must End Soon').