An Aussie artist has divided the New Zealand art scene after he flung a saucy Macca’s pickle onto the ceiling of an Auckland art gallery and asked NZD $10,000 (AUD $8980) for it.
The piece, simply titled “Pickle”, involves exactly what you think it does — a single pickle fished out of a Macca’s burger and yeeted onto the ceiling where it stayed stuck.
Is this art? Of course it is. It’s a comment on the rite of passage for any teen hanging out at the Golden Arches without a responsible adult. As soon as there’s access to an unwanted pickle and a cheeseburger wrapper, that green bastard is getting slingshotted up onto the ceiling at the speed of light.
Bung a little white plaque on the wall next to it, and you’ve got an important piece of cultural commentary art there, my friend.
Matthew Griffin is the conceptual artist behind the sculpture which is currently on display at the Michael Lett Gallery in Auckland as part of an exhibition by Fine Arts Sydney. The group’s director Ryan Moore told The Guardian the pickle is true to form in that it’s not stuck to the ceiling with anything but its own burgie juices.
“As much as this looks like a pickle attached to the ceiling — and there is no artifice there, that is exactly what it is — there is something in the encounter with that as a sculpture or a sculptural gesture,” Moore said.
“How it gets there doesn’t matter, as long as someone takes it out of the burger and flicks it onto the ceiling.
“The gesture is so pure, so joyful — that is what makes it so good.”
Whoever forks out the NZD 10 Gs to own this piece of youthful joy won’t actually own the pickle stuck to the ceiling, however. Griffin will hand over the instructions on how to recreate this moment of unadulterated burger rebellion at home.
I just hope it’s scrawled on the back of the cheesy wrapper he used to flick the pickle up there in the first place.
