this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 70 points 6 days ago

The headline is a little misleading, no? He is offering for sale 10 tonnes of old rope as art for £1m; the article certainly does not mention him having found a buyer, which the headline implies.

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 4 days ago

Sometimes fine art is an investment vehicle for the rich to store their wealth.

[–] CubitOom@infosec.pub 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] eleijeep@piefed.social 1 points 5 days ago

Did you miss the actual joke of the piece?

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

And now please explain to me why this is "art" and not just human slop.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago

Money for old rope, that's how.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nice work if you can get it.

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Anyone can get it if you go find the island of it floating around in the Pacific Ocean (I think?).

[–] kami@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 days ago

Easy money!

[–] Archer@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That’s microscopic plastic

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Turns out most of it is bigger, but still not easily visible (I was definitely one of the people that thought it was giant heaps).

the patch is a widely dispersed area consisting primarily of suspended "fingernail-sized or smaller"—often microscopic—particles in the upper water column known as microplastics.[4]

While microplastics dominate the area by count, 92% of the mass of the patch consists of larger objects. Some of the plastic is over 50 years old, and includes items (and fragments of items) such as "plastic lighters, toothbrushes, water bottles, pens, baby bottles, cell phones, plastic bags, and nurdles".

Wikipedia

[–] k0e3@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I had to google what nurdles were. They're pre-production plastic pellets.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago

It's surfer mispronunciation of "nodules."

Source: used to surf, talked to other surfers about nurdles.

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Don't tell them about Joseph Beuys.

The end of the Fettecke
In 1986, a custodian in the Art Academy of Düsseldorf cleaned up the butter about nine months after Beuys' death.

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I read the article 3 times now and still don't understand

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Fair enough, it's a bit short. Joseph Beuys was an artist that worked with fat & felt a lot. He was famous and esp. after his death his artwork went for insane prices. One of his works was literally a corner of a room filled with fat (butter, apparently, but it's called Fettecke = fat corner or grease corner). A cleaner accidentally cleaned it up, not knowing what it was. Or so the story goes.

[–] Archer@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Being a cleaner at a modern art museum has to be stressful

[–] Donebrach@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

but its curated, in stark space and he’s waring all black! IT ART!

[–] blave@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

While I fully appreciate abstract art, I’m a bit incensed that this is being sold for £1m.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

No one has bought it for £1m.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Silliness aside, old rope kinda fascinates me. Some lasts forever, some is rotten beyond use. I have a giant sack at camp, all kinds. Interesting to see how different materials last, stretch, rot, etc.

Friend gave me quite a bit of the thickest nylon rope pictured. Made a shitty rope bridge out of it that might outlast my old carcass.

[–] turdburglar@piefed.social 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

one of my three favorite artists.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago

The big thumbs-up on the Trafalgar Square plinth was brilliant.