30th October 2007
Jamie Shovlin, a British artist whom last year held a solo exhibition at the Tate Britain is planning a collection of art items for an exhibition at the Manchester Museum. His collection involves buying items from the online auction site Ebay.
Shovlin handed out a questionnaire asking people round Manchester which one item would best describe the city of Manchester. He is taking the ideas and buying 50 of the suggested items from Ebay.
He admitted that there are some problems with the project. The most common theme for answers to the questionnaire was ‘rain’ and sadly ‘misery’. He said that rain is easy enough to think of an item to represent it, an umbrella. Misery is not so easy to buy.
The old saying springs to mind, “money can’t buy you happiness”. Well, neither can it buy you misery!