14728,83 €

It seems like art has taken a new form: the shape of merchandise. The streets around us, houses and bags are filled with products that have a famous artwork printed on them. Is this how we look and perceive art right now? Is the artwork not relevant anymore?
This project takes a curatorial approach: the aim was to treat merchandise items as the main characters and showcase the collection to offer a reflection on today’s role of art.
The research and selection finalized in an artist book, that collects 160 merchandise objects industrially produced and ready to be put on sale, refiguring the so called iconic work of art Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.
The objects, various and always different in shape but not for the image printed on them, appear pounding in a sequence of price, going from lower to higher, like the Tower of Babel: their inability to reach the original’s aura.
The book’s dimensions represent the artwork’s presence, as well as the items inside, they’re each in their own 1:1 scale true size, in again another comparison and dialogue with the original.
14728,83 €, the title of the work, is the sum of all these objects together: a value that neither economically or emotionally could catch to the art one.